Bowl Motor Issue - (Not CatGenius related)

[Benjamin]

Hello,

This is not related to CatGenius in any way. I'm posting here because this group seems to be the best source of knowledge regarding general technical items for the CatGenie. Please let me know if this is inappropriate and I will remove it. 

A month ago my bowl motor started going bad. It would struggle to turn the bowl. There was often a grinding sound and the bowl wouldn't turn. It seemed to me that a gear inside was stripped, because I could manually turn the gear connected to the motor and hear the grinding. 

I had an old catgenie unit that I had stopped using. I took the working bowl motor out of that one and installed it into this genie. The motor was the same model, but an earlier manufacture date.

With the motor from the old unit installed, the bowl sometimes does not start moving when the relay turns on. There is no grinding sound, it just doesn't move. I put the unit into tech mode, and set it to turn the bowl. If it doesn't move, and I push slightly on the bowl, it will start turning in that direction. The direction may be different than the expected direction. So if the bowl is supposed to go clockwise, and doesn't move, and then I push on it counterclockwise it starts rotating counterclockwise. Then if I press the start button to reverse the bowl, the relay clicks and it briefly pauses then continues to go counterclockwise. This keeps happening regardless of how many times I press it to reverse the direction. However, if the box has just booted up and I do the test to turn the bowl and it starts turning the correct direction, the start button does reverse the direction as expected.

The connector to the new genie board and the old one was different. On the old genie the cord was (1-red 2-black 3-black 4-red). The new genie also had two red and two black wires, but the connector was 6 pins (1-red 2-empty 3-black 4-black 5-empty 6-red). 

I cut the connector off of the old and new motors, then connected the red wires from the old motor to the 1 and 6 connectors from the new motor. I connected the black wires to each other (the 2 and 3 wires from the old connector had tape around them before the end connector, and they showed continuity when probed), and then to pins 3 and 4 of the new connector. 

Thank you so much for your help if you know what may be causing this problem!

[Robert Deliën]

> This is not related to CatGenius in any way. I'm posting here because this group seems to be the best source of knowledge regarding general technical items for the CatGenie. Please let me know if this is inappropriate and I will remove it.

No problem; This isn’t a high traffic group.

> A month ago my bowl motor started going bad. It would struggle to turn the bowl. There was often a grinding sound and the bowl wouldn't turn. It seemed to me that a gear inside was stripped, because I could manually turn the gear connected to the motor and hear the grinding.

Bowl motor problems are, afaik, caused by two underlying problems:
1. One of the internal reduction shafts has ground the hole it’s set in into a slot, allowing the gear teeth to unmesh. This is usually caused by a heavily loaded motor.
2. One of the internal coils burned out or disconnected from the terminal port. This is usually wear, corrosion or a manufacturing fault.

> I had an old catgenie unit that I had stopped using. I took the working bowl motor out of that one and installed it into this genie. The motor was the same model, but an earlier manufacture date.

It if is _very_ old, it may spin at a different RPM, but that really doesn’t matter.

> With the motor from the old unit installed, the bowl sometimes does not start moving when the relay turns on. There is no grinding sound, it just doesn't move. I put the unit into tech mode, and set it to turn the bowl. If it doesn't move, and I push slightly on the bowl, it will start turning in that direction. The direction may be different than the expected direction. So if the bowl is supposed to go clockwise, and doesn't move, and then I push on it counterclockwise it starts rotating counterclockwise. Then if I press the start button to reverse the bowl, the relay clicks and it briefly pauses then continues to go counterclockwise. This keeps happening regardless of how many times I press it to reverse the direction. However, if the box has just booted up and I do the test to turn the bowl and it starts turning the correct direction, the start button does reverse the direction as expected.

If it starts going when you help it, that is typically problem nr. 2. Usually it doesn’t matter in which direction you help it: It will go into the direction you help it in.
Check the continuity of your motor coils.

> The connector to the new genie board and the old one was different. On the old genie the cord was (1-red 2-black 3-black 4-red). The new genie also had two red and two black wires, but the connector was 6 pins (1-red 2-empty 3-black 4-black 5-empty 6-red).

The motor has two internal coils, with two wires each. Usually, the two coils have one of each’ wires connected together, as a ‘common’. Check continuity between ‘common’ and each of the other two wires.

> I cut the connector off of the old and new motors, then connected the red wires from the old motor to the 1 and 6 connectors from the new motor. I connected the black wires to each other (the 2 and 3 wires from the old connector had tape around them before the end connector, and they showed continuity when probed), and then to pins 3 and 4 of the new connector.

The colours don’t mean anything. It’s a bit hit-or-mis. The coils may differ in resistance, though.

> Thank you so much for your help if you know what may be causing this problem!

Perhaps Richard still has new motors...

[Peter Lambert]

Hello, I to had the same problem and discovered that it was the start/run capacitor. You will find it on the PCB near the motor connector. I located a replacement capacitor which I had to order from China. I connected the replacement off board having fond that the capacitor had broken down and damaged the PCB tracks. Without the capacitor the motor cannot start properly and can run randomly in either direction.

 

Peter

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[Benjamin]

Thanks! Looks like I'm going to be taking apart the motor i put in and poking around. I already discarded the grinding motor, which is unfortunate it seems because it sounds like it may have had working parts in it that could fix this one. 

[Benjamin]

Awesome, I'll check it out. I don't recall seeing any obvious problems with any capacitors, but I didn't look closely. That sounds like an easy fix if its the problem. I also may be able to salvage one off an old board if it is. Thanks!

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[Robert Deliën]

Awesome, I'll check it out. I don't recall seeing any obvious problems with any capacitors, but I didn't look closely. That sounds like an easy fix if its the problem. I also may be able to salvage one off an old board if it is. Thanks!

On Tuesday, June 18, 2019 at 1:28:43 AM UTC-7, Peter Lambert wrote:

Hello, I to had the same problem and discovered that it was the start/run capacitor. You will find it on the PCB near the motor connector. I located a replacement capacitor which I had to order from China. I connected the replacement off board having fond that the capacitor had broken down and damaged the PCB tracks. Without the capacitor the motor cannot start properly and can run randomly in either direction.

I was not aware of these capacitors wearing down. But if they do, the symptom will be similar to one of the motor coils being broken. So yes, that’s a good tip!

[Robert Deliën]

Hello, I to had the same problem and discovered that it was the start/run capacitor. You will find it on the PCB near the motor connector. I located a replacement capacitor which I had to order from China. I connected the replacement off board having fond that the capacitor had broken down and damaged the PCB tracks. Without the capacitor the motor cannot start properly and can run randomly in either direction.

I’m sorry for exhumation this post, but I ca confirm Peter’s experience here.

Earlier boxes had under-dimensioned capacitors (reference designator C12) for the bowl motor mounted  When used close to their rated voltages, capacitors do not offer their full rated capacitance, and they loose capacitance much more quicker. As a result, the bowl motor starts humming, loses power, and can be easily reversed by hand.

Later boxes had higher rated capacitors mounted.

The 220 volt version went from 330nF/440V to 330nF/1600V

The 110 volt version now has 2uF/275V, but I’ve also seen 1.8uF/275V. An even higher voltage would be better.

When measuring the capacity of my humming box, C12 measured only 210uF on my Fluke. At higher voltages and under actual load it would probably be even less. Replacing it with a new 330nF/1600V version, the humming was gone.

Thanks for the tip, Peter!