Motorcycle: 2012 Fatboy Lo
Garage door: Genie Excellerator

Here are the instructions available on their website (F2P Technologies):

There's another section for installing the transmitter, but it's fairly straight forward.

I installed the receiver at the garage door motor using inputs 1 and 2 (The one's that the wall button goes to). I installed it in parallel because I wanted to keep my current wall button because the one on the F2P receiver feel cheap:



Then I noticed the red light wasn’t blinking, so I found a power supply that fit the connection. It was a 5V power supply and it caused the red light to flash every 3 seconds. The garage door worked when I pushed the button on the receiver.


I installed the transmitter on my motorcycle in the headlight bucket, tapping into the white and black wires. The instructions were not very clear on which wires to tap, so I measured the voltages with and without the high beam on and found the white and black wires to be adequate. Convienently, polarity does not matter for the transmitter.




With the CAN bus in the newer Harleys, the system knows if there is not a light installed, and it will not continue to send voltage to it, so to test the system, I put the light back in and tried it in the garage and it worked great.


Then I tried it in the driveway and it didn’t work anymore! I called F2P and they told me to get anywhere form a 12v to 24v power supply and to reposition the receiver to face the door. I did that and it still didn’t work.
I originally had the transmitter installed in the headlight bucket, but after talking to F2P, I moved it out of the bucket and put it just behind and underneath the headlight.
I used the zip tie and it stayed right where I put it.



I tried the system again from my driveway and it still didn’t work. It would still work from within the garage, but it seemed choosy of when it would work. I had to try it several times.


I called F2P again and they told me to try and reset the receiver by unplugging it for 15 minutes and then plugging it back in and waiting 5 minutes. I tried it after that, and it still had the same result.
They told me to send in the transmitter and receiver. I sent it in a few days ago. They told me that they will test it and send me out a new one.
I look forward to hearing what the issue was.



Overall, the product sounds nice and it seems like a pricy and complicated way to achieve a simple thing. Having said that, the F2P Technologies support staff is very helpful and they are replacing the receiver at no charge even though I purchased it through JP Cycles. Their customer support is top notch and it’s very clear that they stand behind their product. I look forward tom installing the system and having it work.


Update to come.

 

I've had one for several years now and I am pretty happy with the results. The first house I had a Fatbob and it wouldn't work in the headlight bucket so I zip tied it to the bottom of the triple trees and it worked fine. The next house I had the Fatboy I have now and it worked fine but only about 35 or 40 ft from the house. The house I'm in now I couldn't get it to work unless I was nosed up against the garage door. The fix I used was to get some wire, about speaker gauge I think, and extend the wire going to the garage door receiver so that I could put the flash2pass receiver up at the front of the garage. Now It'll work when I'm in front of the next house over, about 35-40 yds from the garage door. It sounds to me like that's what you'll have to do. It's pretty easy to do and cheap. Once you get the flash2pass working right I'm sure you'll love it.

 

what he said.........
Mine was sporadic at first to. then I noticed I could open the garage from inside everytime, and close it from 1/2 a block away but sometimes opening from a distance, sometime not till I was up on the door...... Just moved the transmitter closer to the exterior wall and its been working like a champ.

 

Good to know.

 

Good to know.

 

Good to know. Thanks.

 

I hadn't heard from F2P for awhile, so I sent them an email. Turns out that their units are on back order. I guess I'll continue to wait...

 

Has anyone ran into a situation where the opener is triggered when you aren't expecting it simply from starting your bike?

I installed a F2P this spring and was highly pleased with the system other than being disappointed in their "our unit should work with most openers, and we can't tell you all of those which it will not, but if it doesn't work with your opener all you have to do is buy this additional $10 part that we should include with every unit we sell to make life simpler." Dear Flash2Pass - I'd pay $10 more for the unit if you packaged the adapter I may not need with it so I don't have to stop my installation, order it, pay shipping again, wait for it to show up, etc.

Anyhow - once installed with the adapter it worked great for a month. I really like the product as well. Then one day I came out to find my battery checked out on me between my last ride and my next ride. (I failed to put my tender on, but since it wouldn't take a charge and failed for no reason that I could have caused like leaving the key on, I think it was just the battery's time). I installed a new AGM battery and now I have the following happening:

If the bike has been on the battery tender everything is fine if I just start the bike once I'm outside of the garage. However, if I skip the battery tender, or I was on the tender overnight but have disconnected / started / shut the bike off for any reason and then restart it moments later, the door opens when I hit the starter button. It's clearly a natural voltage drop issue if you ask me, but I'm waiting to hear back from the manufacturer.

I'm pretty sure my old battery shorted a cell while sitting still the one day so I'm wondering if it damaged the sending unit? Either way, I'll be bummed if I have to spend another $40 for a replacement sending unit.

Assuming the manufacturer is as stand up as they sound and I continue to use the product, my only advice to anyone buying one of these is to order the adapter when you buy the unit because the $10 you'll waste if you don't need it will be wasted on 2 rounds of shipping if you do need it anyhow. Additionally, while your opener may work with the F2P unit, using it's own power supply that puts out the recommended voltage (instead of being "in the voltage range of what it needs to operate the F2P unit) surely increases the range of the system IMHO.

 

UPDATE: After waiting quite patiently for two months to hear back from the manufacturer after submitting an online trouble ticket about my last post, I was finally motivated to contact someone this week by phone after my unit developed a new quirk. My garage door opens automatically after a power outage.

I learned this after coming home one day (while my bike was in the garage) to find my garage door open and the clocks in my house flashing. Being the last one to leave the house / first to return that day, I know without a doubt that the door was closed when I left because I didn't exit out of that door. I suspected the power outage was the cause, but it was purely a theoretical cause at the time. Two days later when the power went out again while I was home, I sat around waiting for it to return so I could watch the door and see what happened with my own eyes. Sure enough, once the power was returned my door started going up!

I should say that yes, there is a chance I could have a defective door opener and it could be causing the scenario. But, I've lived in this house for 8 years and lost power plenty of times and never found a door opened afterward. Sure, the opener could have developed a flaw recently, but I find it a little peculiar that it occurred only after adding the Flash2Pass unit.

I've disconnected the unit obviously for the sake of not being robbed courtesy of a power outage, but my conversation with the manufacturer today is what leaves me to suggest you're better off without one of these at least until they solve their existing problems.

First, I was told that my "door cycles when the door opens" was because I possibly picked the wrong wires while following their instructions precisely, but the gentleman I spoke with claimed if I leave the switch in the high beam position (which I do not) and during my installation I tapped the high beam wire, this is "expected" when the power of the bike surges from the draw on the starter. He suggested I switch the wires, and I politely suggested they design a product that will survive a power surge but said I'd swap the wires if I plug my unit back in due to my now bigger problem with the unit.

Secondly, according to who I spoke to, the "door opens when the power returns after an outage" has been reported multiple times and they have no solution. They apparently cannot duplicate the problem in their lab, so they have no solution at the moment. He said he was going to talk to his engineer and call me back tomorrow, but it doesn't make me feel better knowing this has occurred elsewhere and the product is still marketed. The conversation led me to believe this is a small company that unfortunately is not staffed to overcome such obstacles, but this is purely speculation on my behalf.

As an FYI - the person I spoke to said the online ticket system hasn't worked in a long time and after clicking around the website today it seems other parts of it are somewhat non-functional as well at the moment, which are all bad signs of a poorly run if not an "on it's way out" company in my opinion. He went on to tell me that they lost their supplier and had to change manufacturers of the unit which is another red flag to me personally.

Since my garage is detached and I have a separate breaker box in the garage that is fueled by the primary one in the house, I tried re-creating the problem manually by manipulating my breakers with no luck of getting the door to open. This makes me suspect a power surge is occurring in the power coming to my house after it is restored from an outage since I cannot recreate this condition. Either way, it is my opinion that this is one issue I should not be having with a purchased product.

If they offer to replace my unit I'll consider giving it a second chance, but to be honest the thought of finding my garage open again is quite disturbing to me so I think it's time I toss the unit and quit being lazy!