CK700 Chain Sliding Gate Opener

There are a good selection of gate openers on Amazon at this price point but what drew me towards the Topens CK700 was the stall feature that reverses the gate as soon as it senses an obstruction. Automatic gate openers can be dangerous so the more safety features the better. Setup was straight forward and this was my first ever gate opener installation. I have a newly installed Gatecrafters cantilever sliding gate frame where I added some decorative aluminum posts and cedar pickets. Total weight 350-400lbs and this opener pulls it with no issues. Installation: 1) Motor bracket and anchors. - The motor bracket bolts together easily using the included hardware and some wrenches. Anchoring the bracket to the concrete is done with 4 expanding concrete anchors. Drilling the concrete can be done easily if you have a hammer drill and the appropriate drill bits. Mounting the motor onto the bracket is done with 4 bolts. What's strange is although the motor housing were slotted to allow in and out movement but the idler gears bracket does not allow the same movement. I think it was something the designers overlook. Keep in mind the gate should be 1" from the metal chain guard. 2) Chain - 20' of chain and brackets for round and square gate frames are included. My gate is 16' end to end with a 2" square gate frame so the square frame hardware kit was perfect. The chain had to be shorten for my installation but that is the same as shortening a bike chain. Very easy 3) Magnets- The magnets tell the motor when to stop. This is probably the hardest part of the installation as it includes some fabrication depending on your gate. I found the easiest way to do mines were to use the same type of square U bolt hardware that held the chain to attach a sheet of 3/8" aluminum with holes to mount the supplied magnet/magnet bracket. This allowed unlimited left-right movement. I slotted the bolt holes to allow up/down movement. And in/out movement was accounted for using the thickness of my aluminum bracket but can be adjusted with washers. 4) Wiring- wiring is very straight forward. Just attach you 120V AC to the proper receptacle and you're done. I did at a Photoeye sensor and a Homelink receiver and they were both easy to set up with their supplied wiring diagram. After using the opener for about a week I am very happy with its performance. It's not too loud and works exactly as expected.

This little opener was used to slide my 18' cantilever gate weighing about 1500lbs. 3 girls cars, wife's carport, my truck all inside the gate. It gets used many times daily for 3 years. Has not failed once. Reconfigured the gate and just putting new one on since all apart.

I bought this to replace an old Mighty Mule / GTO PRO gate opener that failed after many years. Replacement parts for that thing are more expensive than buying this brand new gate opener. I did have to make a concrete base to bolt this gate opener to, which was a different way to install it compared to how my last gate opener was, so with the curing time of the concrete etc, it took a few days in total to install this unit. Overall I am very pleasantly surprised with this gate opener. Pros: -Instructions well written, their tech support was very helpful and responsive via email. I always got a response from them by the next morning with any questions I had. -.4 HP motor is extremely powerful and quiet. It produces far more power than you would need in my opinion. -Gate opener is far more quiet than my last one. -Has an adjustable force sensor so it will reverse direction if the gate hits something, that is an important safety feature. (I noticed some other brands that look similar don't even have this safety feature) -The chain, anchor bolts, and other hardware that are included are very heavy duty. -The overall quality of this gate opener seems to be very good. The motor seems to be far more than adequate and extremely sturdy, so I think it will last many years. -Great price compared to the last gate opener I had. Cons: -Speed of gate movement is noticeably slower than the last gate opener I had. But still ok. -Doesn't support vehicle sensor kit like my old gate opener did, which opens the gate from inside your property when a car approaches the gate. Due to the fact that the motherboard only has terminals for open/close/stop like a garage door opener would have, and not additional terminals for open only, which a vehicle sensor would use. -The magnets that you mount to the sliding gate are in a plastic casing that bolts to the metal bracket on the gate. I don't trust that plastic casing to last too many summers without cracking from the heat and then eventually falling off. I am thinking of attaching those magnets directly to a metal mounting bracket with epoxy, and bolt that to the gate so that this will never be a problem. This is a very minor detail which is very easy to remedy, but nevertheless worth mentioning in this review. -No battery backup in case of power failure (although a pro with that is that you never have to replace that battery on a regular basis) -I never could figure out how to make the "pedestrian" mode work correctly. This is where you press the 2nd button on your remote and the gate opens for 4 seconds only so somebody can walk though. I also added the following custom items to complete the job: -As the unit has no on/off switch, I added one in a single gang weatherproof housing mounted directly to the base of the gate opener unit, this is useful to lock the gate in the open or closed position, also useful to cut power to the gate opener if you want to service to the unit. -GarageMate smart phone controller - so you can open/close the gate using your smartphone. (I highly recommend this) -An extra length of chain (ALEKO LM188-10) and a chain cutting tool, as I needed a longer chain than the 20' one that came with this kit. -TOPENS Remote Control Pack (M12) to add 2 more remotes (to have enough for 3 cars and one spare for guests)

Bought first one and was surprised about the good quality material, compactness yet sturdy. After figuring out the instructions it was actually simple to install. Tried it for a couple of months and was very impressed with the performance, similar to more expensive brands. The only negative is that it does not program to newer auto opener built in link-system and needs an additional, relatively inexpensive add-on to the unit for it to work and the antenna reach is very short. Still, the regular hand held remotes works better and can still be used with greater distance reach. Nevertheless the convenience of using the auto built-in opener is worth the annoying short distance. I would highly recommend this gate opener as it has outperformed my expectations.

Stay away at all costs. This price point looks nice but since I bought this over 2 years ago I've had nothing but challenges and a lot of back and forth with the customer service that just lead into a lot of troubleshooting and having to fix things yourself. First issue I ran into was the magnet limit switch consistency. I solved this by replacing the limit switches as the originals were defective. The next issue I faced was the worm gear was worn out. I got another sent back and it broke again. I reached out to customer service and they after a lot of back and forth they agreed to send me a new one. When I told them that I didn't trust the worm gear's quality, they assured me that they now use some other kind of metal that has more durability. Now stainless steel vs aluminum. After installing it things were working for a few days until my chains starting jumping randomly. Nothing out of the ordinary happened to my gate recently and my chains are always lubricated so I knew something was wrong. After a lot of inspection I found out that the bearing on one of the gears rolling the chain is loose and broken vs the other one which is still sturdy. You can't buy this replacement part and I'm out of warranty at this point to get a replacement. That said, if you buy this you're gonna struggle. You might have a solid run for a year but you're going to see it fall apart at some point. The price point looks enticing, but absolutely spend money where it's worth. If you have a heavy fence, go for lift master or a more expensive reputable brand. This brand claims it could lift a 2 ton gate. My gate is much lighter and it this product gets wornout quickly. You get what you pay for!

They last exactly 12 months and stop working I've bought 5 of these and every single one makes it 11-12 months

I've used the CK700 for about 3.5 years now. I switched out a Topens rack drive for the chain drive CK700 which has been easier to use with my gate due to a slight slope in my driveway. The accessories are interchangeable with other models and have been easy to install and use, although the fobs are a little flimsy. I have the wireless keypad, infrared photo eye and Wifi remote. I have used customer support a few times and they've been very responsive and helpful. I usually have an answer the next morning. My gate is pretty heavy (steel) so make sure you get a motor capacity that can handle the weight. Customer support videos are very helpful too.

Works great! Got this for my mom‘s gate and it slides open perfectly fine. She is very happy with this product.