How to discharge a garage door opener capacitor?
 

I'm replacing the start capacitor in my overhead door legacy garage door opener. There are two yellow wires on one side and two orange wires on the other side. What is the best way to discharge the old capacitor before I install the new capacitor?


(note: though not directly related to mercedes repair, I need the garage door to work so I can the benzes in and out of the garage......)

Touch your tongue to all the leads simultaneously. Get video.

Seriously, just short the leads with a screwdriver or pair of pliers. You may get a spark, take due precautions. Probably a bad idea to do this while standing barefoot in water or with a natural gas leak.

Is the capacitor actually bad or are you just throwing parts at it? If the cap has died, why waste time discharging it? Motor run caps have a bleeder resistor built in. Pull the leads off and swap the new one in. No harm, no foul.

As said above, should have a bleed resistor, but touch your tongue to it to make sure (video rolling). Seriously, short it with a screwdriver before handling it, but shouldn't have anything stored.

What exactly is or isn't your garage door doing? After I had a failed spring replaced it worked well for a week then had it stay cloesed but after a few attempts it would open. I ended up adjusting the safety force detection tension and all as been well.

A failed capacitor will have the motor just hum when the opener attempts to operate. It will eventually trip out on thermal overload or pop a circuit breaker on the back of the unit.

Close enough for horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear weapons.

And garage door capacitors