Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This review is for the TSS1 Single Automatic Gate Opener. For the impatient among us, here’s the bottom line first: Pluses: Good control arm, I like the design Decent quality hardware Easy to program control panel Good instructions Easy to add other stuff (locks, vehicle sensors, manual close/open buttons) Minuses: A bit onerous to install, it took me almost a full day. In all honesty, that’s just nature of the beast. Control panel wouldn’t synch to the remotes installed in my older cars. $22 if you need to purchase “Push to Open” brackets; I think they’re overpriced. Bottom Line: I like it. My neighbor (a retired electrical engineer) and I were both suitably impressed with this gate opener. It’s a good unit for the money and I’d buy one again. Installation specific’s for my application: I bought this unit to replace a gate opener that had finally worn out. My gate is set 25 feet back from the street and opens out, towards the street. The old opener was a “Push Open” model which was mounted on the driveway side of the opened gate. I removed all of those old brackets essentially making this a fresh install in the “Push to Close” configuration. I did this because it puts the control arm on the outside of my gate which leaves me with a slightly wider driveway. It’s also worth noting that I made sure my hinges were plumb and the gate moved smoothly. I had to replace/upgrade my hinges but that’s another story. Make sure you know if your gate will be configured as a push to open or push to close. The push to close brackets are included with this unit. They soak you $22 for their set of push to open brackets. These brackets are two simple pieces of flat iron with three holes drilled in each one, I believe they are over priced. The installation instructions were some of the best I’ve seen and with one minor exception which I’ll cover later, clearly written. The process is this; you mount the half circle base assembly on the fence post with the hinges. This base has four holes which allows you to bolt it to (through or around) the post. The placement of this base is critical. I initially had it centered on my three inch (square) post however, when the gate was opened all the way (it opens about 95 degrees from closed) it struck the side of the bracket and prevented the gate from opening all the way. I re-mounted the bracket so the gate side of the bracket was flush with the post. Next you attach the two flat pieces that span between the control arm and the half round piece. There are adjustment holes around the circumference of the half round bracket that allow you position the hinge side of the control arm where you need it. You need 4 1/2” of clearance between the hole where the control arm attaches and the face of the fully opened gate. When I adjusted the arms to the first hole that gave me >4 1/2” clearance I found that the housing of the control arm struck the half circle bracket before the gate was fully closed. I was able to fix this by adjusting and welding the arms half way between the holes which gave me the clearance I needed at both ends. Note to Ghost Controls: You might want to leave a bit more flat area on this end of the control arm so people don’t run into the interference issue. Next, with the gate fully opened you measure 35” from the holes on the arms you just set to the surface of the gate where you will be mounting the second control arm bracket. This is my one beef with the instructions; they specify 35” on the set-up diagram and never mention it again. This is a very important dimension because the gate has to be positioned exactly where you want "fully opened " to be before you permanently affix this bracket as you can’t adjust the open position electronically. I clamped that bracket where I thought it belonged (35” to the center) and moved on to the controller box. I mounted and wired up the controller box, it was very straight forward. Once everything was up and running, I followed the excellent instructions to set the gate closed position. I cycled the gate a few times and fine tuned the location of the second bracket until the opened gate was exactly where I wanted it. Then I welded it down, it could have been just as easily bolted. Lastly, since my control arm is now outside the gate (when it’s closed) I wanted an option to prevent it’s theft. Ghost Controls sells a clevis pin with a padlock for $33 however, I bought a 1/2” trailer hitch lock (which I like better) for $30. The hitch lock is the perfect size for the bushing in controller arm but a bit too small for the brackets. I drilled the brackets out to fit the new locking pin. Edited for spelling/clarity. If anything changes, I’ll update this review.