Scooper arm stays down

[Chris P]

Hello again,

I installed CatGenius about a month or two ago. It's been running quite well except for the past couple of weeks. The scooper arm seems to have stopped working. It no longer scoops during the manual scoop cycle, or the full wash cycle. I have tried unplugging the power to the CatGenie for 8 hours, then plugged it back in again. I then tried a manual scoop cycle and a wash cycle, but the arm still stays down. 

Any help would be much appreciated. My catgenie is about 6 months old.

Thanks,

Chris

[Robert Deliën]

> The scooper arm seems to have stopped working. It no longer scoops during
> the manual scoop cycle, or the full wash cycle.

Can you check with GenieDiag if you can still operate the scoop? If you can, try holding it back to check if it still exerts enough force. Check both directions.
Check the processing unit interior for rust, soap or gunk on the scooper motor. Check if the scooper motor plug is still socketed well.

> I have tried unplugging the power to the CatGenie for 8 hours, then plugged
> it back in again.

Anything longer than 10 seconds has the same result as 10 seconds.

> I then tried a manual scoop cycle and a wash cycle, but the arm still stays down.

Manual scoop?

[Chris P]

I found the problem. I took it apart the catgenie and found that one of the sanisolution lines broke. It has been squirting fluid onto the motor that controls the scooper arm. I removed that motor and tried turning it manually but I can't move it at all. I don't know if that's normal or not. 

Should i try cleaning it with Isopropyl alcohol and an air compressor? What are my options here?

Thanks

[Ken Kolbly]

Those motors are gearhead motors, so your ability to turn it against the
gear reduction is limited even in the best of conditions. If the motor is
in any way impacted, then you won't be able to turn it at all.

You might be able to clean the motor without opening it, but I personally
would not because I'd want to be sure I got all the crud out.

However, it is possible to disassemble the motors and clean them. They
are not designed for that but it can be done.

Take careful notes and pictures as you take it apart. Make diagrams!

Once you expose the main motor, then you can clean everything (alcohol is
a good choice) and put it all back together. Use a modest amount of a
medium weight grease (almost anything you buy in those small tubes at the
local hardware store will be fine) in the gearhead area. Nothing in the
motor area.

Assuming no wires have been corroded and damaged, you should be good to go.

Good Luck!

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[Chris P]

Thanks for the suggestions. There was a rubber flap on the side of the motor that i was able to remove. From there i could see some of the wires had shorted out, and they were covered in gunk. I rinsed it with isopropanol and blew it out with a can of compressed air. Then i put everything back together again. When i powered on the catgenie, i could see that the motor was turning. But when i put it on the catgenie base, the scooper would move, but only slightly. It doesn't go all the way up and down like it should. 

Should I try running GenieDiag like MindBender suggested? Is there a tutorial for that?

Or should i take apart the CatGenie base, and make sure the gears that move the Scooper aren't covered in soap.  I haven't looked at the base yet, so i'm not sure if it can come apart. 

Thanks guys, i really appreciate the help.

[Robert Deliën]

> Thanks for the suggestions. There was a rubber flap on the side of the
> motor that i was able to remove. From there i could see some of the
> wires had shorted out, and they were covered in gunk. I rinsed it with
> isopropanol and blew it out with a can of compressed air.

So you didn't disassemble the motor? It's not made to be taken apart, but I've done it a couple of times, back in the days when boxes were still fitted with a bad batch of scooper motors. With a bit of care and technical insight, it's not a problem.
I doubt if IPA removes soap residues very well though.

> Then i put everything back together again. When i powered on the catgenie,
> i could see that the motor was turning. But when i put it on the catgenie
> base, the scooper would move, but only slightly. It doesn't go all the way up
> and down like it should.

These induction motor are synchronous motors, with mean that the run synchronously to your mains frequency, regardless of their load. Unless they're overloaded; Then they'll start skipping steps. This is mostly noticeable by the motor stuttering, but there may still be some gunk in the motor smoothing that out.

> Should I try running GenieDiag like MindBender suggested? Is there a tutorial
> for that?

There used to be one in the project Wiki, but Google seems to have messed that up.
I don't think there's a point in trying GenieDiag. I think we should make sure your motor runs smoothly first. You should be able to turn in by hand, but as someone already said, the internal gear reduction will work against you, so you will need a little force. When you get it going, the rotor is spun up and it should feel smoothly.

> Or should i take apart the CatGenie base, and make sure the gears that move the
> Scooper aren't covered in soap.  I haven't looked at the base yet, so i'm not sure
> if it can come apart.

There're no gears in the base. The one sticking out is directly attached to the shaft driving the scooper arm.

[Chris P]

I didn't disassemble the motor. But it looks like i might have too...

When i run a full wash cycle, the scooper arm will go up, then when it goes down, it seems to stop as soon as there's resistance. So it won't go all the way down to do the scooping. I can push the scooper down manually when it's trying to go down, but after scooping it won't go back up. I'm guessing the motor needs to be replaced. Does anyone have one for sale? :)

[Robert Deliën]

Yeah, that's the problem with synchronous motors: they don't slow down under load. When it's binding internally, the remaining amount of force it can exert externally decreases, making the motor appear weaker.

(Sent from a mobile device; Please excuse grammar, typos and brevity)

On 22 feb. 2016, at 18:47, Chris P <chrisp...@gmail.com> wrote:

I didn't disassemble the motor. But it looks like i might have too...

When i run a full wash cycle, the scooper arm will go up, then when it goes down, it seems to stop as soon as there's resistance. So it won't go all the way down to do the scooping. I can push the scooper down manually when it's trying to go down, but after scooping it won't go back up. I'm guessing the motor needs to be replaced. Does anyone have one for sale? :)

[Robert Deliën]

> Yeah, that's the problem with synchronous motors: they don't slow down under load. When it's binding internally, the remaining amount of force it can exert externally decreases, making the motor appear weaker.

Oh, and check the motor coils: you Should measure a resistance between any two of the terminal pins in the connector. If you measure infinite, a wire in one of the two coils is broken.

[Chris P]

Looks like the motor is shot: http://i.imgur.com/ssGABXj.jpg

the blue wire (top right) shorted, melted, and is no longer attached to the motor. I doubt this is something that I can fix because i can't see what the blue wire was attached to. 

[Robert Deliën]

>

It looks bad, but you really have to measure continuity. If that fails, you have nothing to loose and you can disassemble the motor. Inside you will find two coils. If nothing is badly molten there, you can see you find which coil wire is disconnected and see if you can reconnect it. If it's the beginning of the coil it may be hard. But if it's the end of the coil, just take off one winding and you'll have more than enough wire to connect to the terminal.
You may have to remove a piece of tape off of the winding. You need to put that back and make sure it's tight. It prevents the coil wire from vibrating and eventually breaking.

[Chris P]

I did measure the continuity between black and red with my multimeter. I tried taking apart the motor yesterday but could only removed the gears. I couldn't find a way to get the motor out of the metal housing. I'll try again later this week with a bit more force. Now that I know that the motor is shot I have nothing to lose right? :)

 

Thanks again for the help 

[Chris P]

I took the motor apart over the weekend but still wasn't able to fix it.

I took some pictures and posted them on Imgur. Hopefully someone will be able to find them useful: https://imgur.com/a/Lgi6Q

Thanks again for the help guys. If anyone has a spare scooper motor they're looking to sell, please let me know. I can pay via bitcoin or paypal.

[Jay Tindel]

I too, am in need of a scooper motor. Mine just died Tuesday. 

[Chris P]

UPDATE: I bought a used Cat Genie off off craigslist for $150 CAD and flashed it with CatGenius. It must have been an older 120 model, because it already had the socket on the circuit board. They melted it with a soldering iron, but i was able to clear out the pin holes using a micro hand drill. 

I thought you guys might enjoy this pic. I needed an adapter to attach my pickit3 to the cable. I cut up a paperclip and it worked great. The middle pin needed to be longer because of the soldering iron damage. 

Thanks again for helping me install CatGenius.