Five-Key Function Selector for Automatic Doors: Modes, Wiring and Setup

A function selector does not open the door. It decides which devices the door is still allowed to obey, and everything that goes wrong at handover usually comes back to one of five positions, four terminals or a four-digit code.

Edison, Sales Manager, Ningbo Yufan Beifan Automatic Door Co., Ltd.·Published 2026-11-11·Last verified: 2026-11-11·Checked against our published product data

The five positions are not five intensities of the same behaviour; each one disconnects another input, and that is the whole logic of the device. I have taken enough commissioning calls on this panel to know that the argument is never about the display. It is always about which sensor, which reader and which lock the door is still listening to at 8 am on a Monday.

This page is the sequence I would follow on site: understand what the position changes, wire it once, set it with the two keys, test it in the order that finds faults fastest, and leave a card behind that tells the next person what state the door is in. If you are still choosing the model, the five key function selector product page carries the published specification this article works from.

What does a five-key function selector actually change?

A function selector does not open the door; it decides which devices the door is allowed to obey. In Automatic the operator listens to the motion sensors and the card reader. In Full Lock it listens to nothing, the electric lock stays locked and the leaf stays shut.

In our range a function selector is a wall-mounted mode switch for a single automatic door operator. It presents one of five states to that operator, and each state is a different combination of three things: which detection sensors are live, whether the access controller is accepted, and whether the electric lock is released. Nothing about the motor, the belt or the door weight changes when you turn it, because we are changing only the inputs.

The name needs clearing up before anything else, because it trips up fitters and buyers alike: on the push-button version the faceplate carries two keys and a display, and the five keys are the five positions you step through with them. The key-switch variant, published as M-240 and M-242, replaces the two keys with a keyed switch, so the person holding the key is the person who can change the mode. The key version ships with two keys; the button version ships without. Both drive the same operator inputs.

The five positions, and what each one disconnects

Read the five positions as a ladder: each step removes one more input until Full Lock removes everything, and Full Open removes everything while holding the leaf open. The table below is the published behaviour, arranged the way a commissioning engineer needs it.

I describe the pattern this way on site. Automatic and Half Open treat the door as a working entrance. Unidirectional treats it as an exit with a card-controlled way in. Full Lock treats it as a locked door that happens to be made of glass. Full Open treats it as an opening rather than a door, which is exactly why the next paragraph matters.

Full Open is the only position that removes the detection that stops the leaf closing on a person, so it belongs to a scheduled window rather than a switch someone flips because the lobby is warm. Where a building needs air movement all day, our answer is a properly designed hold-open with the protective devices still in circuit, not a key position that quietly disables them.

How do you wire the panel so the first power-up is clean?

In our commissioning notes most first-power-up failures are one of three things: the feed on the wrong terminal pair, an electric eye pair swapped, or a panel that was never bench-tested. We wire it in this order so each of those is caught before it reaches the door.

Power goes on 3 and 4, not 1 and 2

The published input is DC 12-36 V, and the manual carries a specific instruction for the 12 V case: the supply connects through terminals 3 and 4 and must not be taken from terminals 1 and 2. Our note does not explain why the two pairs differ, and it does not need to. Treat it as a wiring rule, because the pairs are not interchangeable and a panel fed on the wrong one will look dead while the supply is perfectly healthy.

Because the panel shares a building with 24 V accessories, the voltage on the label is the first thing to read and the last thing to assume. A receiver, a sensor and a selector on the same door can be specified at different input ranges, and a 24 V accessory fed from a 12 V rail is the fastest way to lose an afternoon. We check the label, meter the rail, then connect.

The two electric eyes have colours for a reason

The transmitting electric eye lands on the blue cable and the receiving electric eye on the black. That colour code is the difference between a five-minute termination and an hour of tracing, because the two heads look identical on the bracket and only one of them emits. Swap them and the panel sees a beam that is permanently broken, which on most operators reads as a door that holds open.

What the operator expects on the other side

The selector presents a mode state; how your operator reads that state depends on the operator’s own input design. That is the one part of this installation I will not guess at over email. Send the operator model with the order and we will mark up the terminals for that controller, because a mode input wired as though it were a push-button input gives a door that opens once and then behaves as if nothing happened.

Mounting: an 85 mm opening behind a 92 mm faceplate

Our published panel is 92 mm x 92 mm x 46 mm with an 85 mm x 85 mm x 43 mm cutout, and the display window is a 34 mm x 25 mm TFT. Cut the opening with the faceplate in hand rather than from a drawing, leave about 150 mm of slack behind the panel, and check that the body clears the box before the cables are dressed. In my experience a 43 mm deep body in a shallow box is a five-minute problem that turns into a re-plaster.

How do you change a position without a laptop?

On the button version we run every position change through the same four steps, and the panel confirms each one with the buzzer and the display. Learn the sequence once and it stops being a mystery:

1. Hold key 1 and key 2 together for five seconds until the buzzer sounds, which puts the panel into programming.
2. Enter the four-digit code and confirm it with keys 1 and 2; the factory code is 1111 and it is the first thing to replace.
3. Step through the five positions with key 1 or key 2 and watch the display follow, because the display is the only confirmation you get before the door moves.
4. Confirm by holding keys 1 and 2 again, or wait two seconds and the panel accepts whatever position is showing.

Changing the code is a ten-second press, not a menu: hold keys 1 and 2 for ten seconds, listen for the buzzer at five and the second buzzer at ten, then enter the old code and the new code twice. Our manual is blunt about what happens if that code is lost, and the recovery is physical rather than electronic.

We put two more behaviours in the commissioning notes. The dial switch on the circuit board switches position without any code at all, which is a service convenience and a security decision at the same time. And the factory reset is done with the cover off: power the panel, press key 1 or 2, move the dial switch to ON and back, and every indicator flashes twice as the code returns to 1111.

What does a commissioning afternoon look like?

In my experience the order of the tests matters more than the tests themselves, because each position narrows what the next one can prove. This is the sequence I walk a fitter through, and it finishes with the door back in Automatic rather than wherever the last test left it.

1. Bench-test before you climb. Power the panel from a bench supply, cycle all five positions and watch the display confirm each one, so a faulty unit fails on a table rather than on a ladder.
2. Cut and mount. Open the 85 mm square, leave 150 mm of slack and fix the faceplate with the screws in the bag.
3. Wire the supply to terminals 3 and 4 for a 12 V feed, and meter it before the operator is energised.
4. Land the eyes and the lock. Blue to the transmitting head, black to the receiving head, then the lock output so the lock follows the position rather than the card reader.
5. Set Automatic and walk both directions. Confirm the leaf opens on approach from outside and inside, and closes on the operator’s own timing without a hand on the door.
6. Switch to Unidirectional and test it from both sides. The outside reader should still work; the outside motion sensor should not; the inside sensor should still release the door for exit.
7. Switch to Full Lock and confirm the lock engages with the leaf closed, then return the panel to Automatic before you pack up.
8. Write the handover card with the position, the schedule, the code holder, the dial switch location and where the spare keys live.

If a project has several entrances, we run the sequence on one door completely before starting the next. The failure mode I see most often on multi-door sites is a fitter who tests five doors in parallel, ends up with five panels in five different positions, and cannot tell which test failed on which door.

Why does the panel look dead, or refuse to move?

In our support inbox almost every complaint about this panel resolves to supply, code or mode input, in that order. We work down the table before replacing anything, because the panel is rarely the failed part.

One habit is worth building: read the display before you test anything else. It shows which mode the door is obeying, and most of the complaints I take are answered by that glance rather than by a meter.

What must this panel never be used for?

The selector is a mode device, not a safety device, and the difference is the whole reason a compliant installation keeps its protective circuit separate. Safety-related control functions on a power-operated door are designed and validated as their own system, which is the subject of ISO 13849-1, the standard for safety-related parts of control systems, while the electrical safety of the drive itself sits under IEC 60335-2-103, the particular requirements for drives for gates, doors and windows. A key position is not a performance level.

Three uses cross the line in our experience. Full Open as a daily convenience setting removes detection from a working entrance, which no risk assessment will support. The selector as a fire interface is the second: a fire strategy needs its own release input, tested with the alarm, not a panel someone remembers to turn. The third is treating the selector as access control, when it only gates what the door accepts and authenticates nobody.

Because an entrance is also an accessible route, a door left in Full Lock through opening hours is an accessibility failure and not only an inconvenience. The 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design set the requirements for doors on an accessible route and route power-operated doors to the door-operator safety standards, so the mode schedule and the access plan have to agree with each other. If you need the sensor side of that argument in more detail, our guide to safety beam sensors and compliance covers the protective devices themselves.

What goes on the handover card?

In our projects the handover card is the difference between a building that runs a schedule and a building that runs whatever the last person pressed. It takes us two minutes and it answers the call that arrives three weeks later.

• The position the door is normally left in, and the time window for each of the other positions.
• Who holds the four-digit code, and what to do if that person leaves the company.
• Where the dial switch is, and that it changes the position without a code.
• The operator model the selector is wired to, because the next fault will need it.
• The two keys, the screw bag and the printed instructions, kept with the door file rather than in a drawer.

We treat spares as part of the same conversation. Our published packing list is one main body, two keys on the key version, a screw bag and the instructions, and the panel is rated for more than 75,000 mechanical operations. When a distributor stocks our range for projects, the automatic door accessories series is where the selector sits alongside the sensors, the lock hardware and the remote receiver that also sets modes.

Frequently asked questions about the function selector

Related reading: card readers and remotes on the same door · safety beam sensors and compliance · automatic door accessories series · procurement FAQs