Installing a Garage Door opener on your Motorcycle

When I moved into my first house I was glad to finally put my motorcycle in a garage. I purchased extra garage door openers to make things more convenient one for the truck and one for each bike (wife rides too). The problem I had with this is:
    A) Having to fish around to find the button of the remote (even though the button took up half the face it sometimes turned around in my pocket facing the wrong way)
    B) Some times if I left it in my pants pocket it would accidentally open the garage door and I wouldn't find out till the morning. 
    C) Wifes opener fell out of her pocket on the road. 
So I need a way to keep the transmitter on the bike as we do in our vehicles and also have easily accessible while riding.  

This bike is an 04 Yamaha R6. I have also done this on a 97 Yamaha 600 and two Honda F4 can't remember what year they were.

Step 1 Supples

You will need a garage door opener
Speaker wire (I think I used 18 or 20 gauge)
Shrink tubing 
Soldering iron
Wire connectors
Zip ties
And maybe some scrap tin
Multimeter

Also something to keep in mind. if you live close to a corner try to give yourself some distance before canceling your turn signal when leaving so you don't open your garage door by mistake. This happened to a friend of mine on occasion.

Comments

[hamsammy]

Glad to see someone else thought of this. Those Flash to Open kits are way too expensive, but got me thinking about which circuits on the bike I could use to tie into an opener. I plan on doing mine with the cancel button and an aftermarket HomeLink box. These are great because you can program them AND they are powered by the vehicle, so you don't have to worry about the issue mastelios was concerned with.

[ninja_joey]

I've tried running wires from the GDO to a momentary push-button switch located on my new fairings(I had to drill a hole into the fairings)... every time the connectors on the button switch would bend under stress so I gave up on having a GDO attached to my bike.

I like your idea and will be trying it out... hopefully it works on my 06 ZX10R

[mastelios]

Nice and clever idea!have done this with a separate switch.Problem is that it works even when i park my bike outside my house with no keys on.So if someone knows the button,the garage door gets opened easily.I am thinking of removing the 12v battery an connecting power from the bike's circuit so that it is powered up only then the key in turned.My concern is it on charge,the bike produces about 14volts and don't know if the remote can handle it.looking for a way to stabilize the voltage.any Ideas?
thumbs up for the execution!

[steveofthenw]

I've done this for years. Helps me get in touch with my inner "James Bond". I use a 3-dollar button from Radio Shack & mount it in my fairing within easy reach. Knobs will ask me if it's a nitrous button; I tell 'em it's a rocket launcher.

[airsoftbeast40]

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[jloughran]

I thought about doing this - then I decided to keep it simple and mount the transmitter under my fairing above the engine with heavy duty velcro (right side of the machine). This is on a Victory Vision. Works like a charm, its in easy reach, out of the rain and out of the way. Gets a little warm there sometimes but I'm always wearing gloves & the velcro hasn't budged in over 12k miles so I'm not worried about it going anywhere-

[myargonauts]

Yeah it should last for a bit. I found I had to replace my Velcro when I took the photos for this post but that was only 40k miles from when I originally installed it. I'm just glad it had something to fall on to. :)

[britewood]

Great Instructable... thanks for sharing. I will have to get a third opener and try to do this with my Sabre...

[theHankster]

I did something similar on my KTM. I physically mounted it behind the headlight ( no room anywhere else on the bike), but wired it into the high beams, isolating the opener from the headlight circuit with a relay. Since I ride mostly during the day, it hasn't proven a problem in over three years.

Your idea to wire it into the cancel button is excellent in that the opener is never powered up for any length of time. Nice!

[spider_kyle]

When I first saw this I was thinking, "Great, 'Stick it to such and such part of your bike' this is gonna be awesome..." But it really was, that's some ingenious thinking to integrate it with the signal switch, I like it. Now I just need a garage...

[HoldOnTight]

Okay, you did the hard work finding the right wires. I have a yamaha too, so which wires do I use? Thanks!

[myargonauts]

I guess I forgot to mention that part. I ran my own wire from the switch down through the frame to where I placed the door opener. Running the wire is fairly simple and you don't need to shrink wrap the whole length of the wire just from the switch to where the wire tucks behind the frame or under the faring.

[steveofthenw]

And the best place to get them tiny little connectors is at an R/C hobby shop.

[mikeasaurus]

great idea!

[KaptainKen]

I like it!

An option would be to attach the transmitter to the inside of your fairing ... the fiberglass or plastic would not block the transmitter signal.

My bike has a fork mounted windshield (also plastic.) I'll mount the transmitter inside; that is: on the rider's side. Because it turns with the handlebars, I can make a tighter, neater wire connection to the turn-signal cancel switch.