Automatic Litterbox Central

Hi there - we've set up our LR, and it seems to be sensing properly when my cats use (which they did the first day!). However, when the globe rotates, it sifts the waste but doesn't rotate around enough to open the waste ports and dump the clumps into the drawer. Help!

Diane
Pebbles and Bam-Bam

Is the globe seated correctly in the base?? That's the first thing I would check. Do you have too much litter in the globe? That's the second thing to check. If those are fine, give a call to the Litter Robot people for technical assistance.

If your LR is still under warranty (which is 18 months), call them and they'll probably ship you a new circuit board for free. More than likely your cat has sent some urine out the front and onto the circuit board underneath the front panel, which can cause erratic behavior by your LR. They'll send you a new board, no questions asked. When you speak to the representative, ask about the new lip and fence, which work great to keep the urine inside.

They will probably send an entire replacement since it's most likely a manufacturing defect. Since it's new, it's very unlikely that urine has damaged the circuit board.

difs,

Did you ever come up with a solution for this problem. I'm a new owner of a used Litter Robot, and I'm running into the same problem. The waste ports make it to about the 7 o'clock position and never get close to engaging with the device in back of the base, but the globe stops and then returns to the starting position. No flashing lights or anything.

How does the LR know when to stop rotating counter clockwise during the Cycle?

I've got an email dialog started with LR tech support, but I'm looking at other options.

TheBigGroundhog wrote:How does the LR know when to stop rotating counter clockwise during the Cycle?

There is at least one magnet (I think two) glued into the track from the inside. As the magnet passes over a detector in the base, it sends a signal to the circuit board so it knows how far the globe has turned. If you run a paper clip over the track in the globe, the magnet will grab it.

Found a solution to this and will post the other related details here that will hopefully help others.

1. I confirmed that the position sensor (that detects the magnets in the globe gear) was snapped into place correctly into the holder in the base. It was.

2. Interestingly enough, if I removed the position sensor and let it hang down so it couldn't detect the magnets, the globe STILL didn't rotate fully but stopped early and returned to the starting position.

3. If I manually used an external magnet on the dangling position sensor, I could get the globe to stop, then reverse, then stop again when the magnet was present (indicating that the position sensor was functioning normally.

4. Confirmed that the magnets were in the correct location on the globe using a paper clip (from tech support):

"There is a seam all around the globe just above the rivets. Go to the side of the globe where the waste ports are and start at this seam and count UP on the track and see between which 2 holes the paper clip clings. It should be between the 10th and 11th hole. NOW, start at the seam again, only this time count DOWN on the track. The paper clip should cling between the 9th and 10th hole."

5. Now here's the kicker for me, since we bought this as a used unit on Craigslist, the power supply we were given was a 9V power supply that was enough to power the unit and rotate the globe, just not very fast. Apparently we need to have a 12VDC and either a 450mA or a 500mA adapter? So I'm guessing the actual problem was that the globe was spinning too slowly at 9V, then reached a timeout on the controller and returned to the starting position with the magnet. Using a Linksys power supply I had in the house I was able to get the unit working again with the 12V power supply.


I have to give the Litter Robot support people a lot of credit for sticking with me on this troubleshooting/repair issue (that wasn't caused by anything that they did, since I was given the incorrect power supply by the original owner). They were difficult to get in touch with, but working with them back and forth via email worked out very well for me and got me to a good solution.

TheBigGroundhog wrote:5. Now here's the kicker for me, since we bought this as a used unit on Craigslist, the power supply we were given was a 9V power supply that was enough to power the unit and rotate the globe, just not very fast. Apparently we need to have a 12VDC and either a 450mA or a 500mA adapter? So I'm guessing the actual problem was that the globe was spinning too slowly at 9V, then reached a timeout on the controller and returned to the starting position with the magnet.

That's right! There is a timeout if it doesn't detect the magnet and it assumes the globe is stuck and gives up. When my base was damaged and prevented the globe from turning smoothly, eventually it would give up.

TheBigGroundhog has got it. I moved recently, cleaned the LR but couldn't find the AC adapter that was sent with it. I had bought a Universal AC Adapter from Ace Hardware. Worked fine and turned the globe fully - dumping and all. However, when I found the AC adapter that came with the new LR, it sounded like it didn't have enough power, and it didn't. The globe wasn't fully turning enough to open the waste doors. And just like TheBigGroundhog said - the AC needs to have an output 12V DC and the current has to be, well, mine is 500mA. And you can hear it...sounds like it has more power. The AC that came from the company is 700mA - not enough to turn the globe completely.