Electric gates and cold weather

Call me Al

Our gates are in about 9 years now and have been serviced quite a few times over the years. The main faults in the past have been dodgy circuit boards, always replaced and fine thereafter.
However we've an annoying problem this past month in the 4 degrees and lower temperatures. At this stage the gates won't close after they're opened on the cold nights, and they will stay open until such time as sunshine or heat hits the motor box in the ground the following morning. Once that happens they will work fine for the rest of the day, until such time as the temp drops again in the evening.

The motor etc were all serviced last October and all is fine, other than this glitch.
Anyone have suggestions on what to do to fix it.

2011

The first thing that I would do is ensure that the hinges are well greased.
The less effort required to operate the gates the more likely it is that they will open and close fully when required.

So clean off the old grease and apply high quality grease, then operate the gates several times to ensure that the grease works it's way in properly.

Irish Steve

Depending on how the gate senses an obstruction, the other possibility is that there's condensation on the sensor lens, which makes it think that there's something blocking the path of the gate. I have a light sensor on the driveway, and when it's cold, and condensation develops on the return lens, the light won't come on, as it thinks the beam is broken, so doesn't reset correctly.

Wipe the reflective mirror off, and it works perfectly again until the next time it gets colder. It might be something similar with the gate.

Call me Al

Thanks for these pointers. I'll look into them.