Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

In our tandem garage, my wife tends to park her car too far forward.
Her son parks too close to her car, concerned thathe garage door may lower on his vehicle.

I'd like to attach two lasers to the ceiling, aimed so that they would mark where the vehicles should stop.
When the car is moved forward until the dot is on the trim where the window meets the hood, that is where the vehicle should stop.

The laser pointers would be powered along with the garage door light and go out when the light goes out.
Does anyone make garage door obstruction detectors which have visible light?

Any ideas?
Thank you.

I have seen a few advertized in such magazines as Popular Mechanics and the like. Those systems use a long, portable strip you place on the floor. The tire weight of the vehicle completes a circut in the strip and a wall mounted light turns on to signal the driver to stop.

Even cheaper is what we use here: look out the right side window, when the door pillar gets even with this, then stop. In my case the this is the edge of my workbench, your individual this could be anything: a paint mark on the wall for example. Don't make it anything that can be easily moved though.

I've got an even cheaper idea... my dad did this for years and I picked it up myself.

Park the car exactly where you want it. Then get yourself a somewhat large washer (the kind used with a bolt) and some string. All you have to do is measure the length from the ceiling to the windshield of the car and then hang the washer on the string so that it (the washer) touches the windshield.

Viola! When you go to park the car you pull in until the washer taps the windshield and your good to go.

It doesn't get in your way when you are working in the garage... if you happen to bump into it it's not going to hurt you or anything.

Thanks for the ideas.

Anything hanging would eventually mark her car from road grime getting on the object and scratching the roof as the car moves forward and beyond
and again when it backs out.
Also there would be two things hanging down which I would have to work around.

Anything on the floor would make cleaning more difficult.

The lasers would avoid all of that.

Who sells laser pens?
I could probably attach a switch which would connect battery power to the pens while the garage door opener light is on.
If they are cheap enough, I'd buy several to form a line of dots.
She would steer so thathe dots were in the left seam between hood and fender.
That would guide the car far right, close to the wall.
Often she parks too much to the left, concerned that she will scrape the right side of her car.

Same would be done for her son's car behind hers.

I would take a tennis ball or another soft object and put string through it and hang it from your ceiling when you want your car to stop, and when it touches tour windshield, you have parked.

If you want something high tech. they make a little stoplight thing you mount on the wall, it has a sensor and when you pull into the garage it turns green, then when you get close it turns yellow, and then red when you need to stop.

Robert_Gift wrote:Thanks for the ideas.


The lasers would avoid all of that.

Who sells laser pens?
I could probably attach a switch which would connect battery power to the pens while the garage door opener light is on.
If they are cheap enough, I'd buy several to form a line of dots.
She would steer so thathe dots were in the left seam between hood and fender.
That would guide the car far right, close to the wall.
Often she parks too much to the left, concerned that she will scrape the right side of her car.

Same would be done for her son's car behind hers.

Make sure nobody burns out a retina out while parking.

illinoistrains wrote:I would take a tennis ball or another soft object and put string through it and hang it from your ceiling when you want your car to stop, and when it touches tour windshield, you have parked.

If you want something high tech. they make a little stoplight thing you mount on the wall, it has a sensor and when you pull into the garage it turns green, then when you get close it turns yellow, and then red when you need to stop.

The first car proceeds forward, through the rear car's tennis ball, to the front parking space.
The tennis ball, with road grime on it, will scratch the roof.

I don't want two things hanging from the ceiling.

The ultrasonic device will not work for the second vehicle.

Laser pens would be perfect and not be powerful enough to cause eye problems.
Any pin-point light source would work. Laser pens, with their own battery power supplies, would work well.

OK. You're looking for laser pens with their own battery supply, and not 120 VAC industrial lasers. Laser pens operate at a pretty low DC voltage so unless you have a variable power supply, plan on stocking up on those button batteries. The fact that it is a DC circut will greatly simplify the detection & activation controls, but I don't know how you plan on actually activating multiple pen lasers.

That's a lot of effort to put in, but if you're game, then go for it. Personally, I'd wax the clear coat on the roof of the cars twice a year and go with the tennis ball. What ever road grime may accumulate will wash right off.

Walgreens has laser pens, 2/$5 !

Uses three LR44 button cells = 4.5 Volts

I'll use a relay connected to the garage door motor unit light to send current from three D cell batteries to the laser pens.
Hope thathese lasers will not be damaged by being on for the many minutes the garage door motor light remains on.
First I'll try two batteries for 3 volts and see if the light is bright enough.
Hopefully that will be easier on the lasers and make it less likely that they will burn out.

Post some pictures when you get it done; I'd like to see how it turns out.