Automatic Litterbox Central

The motor spring (which retracts the cord) of the LitterMaid broke recently, but I was able to fix it, since the break was only about 6 inches from the end of the spring that is riveted to the retracting wheel. I removed both wheel assemblies and drilled out the old rivet and threw the short stub in my purse, hoping that in my ventures around town, I may be able to replace it. Meanwhile, I drilled a hole in the end of the remaining spring and riveted it back onto the retracting wheel. Replaced the 2 screws, reassembled the unit - hmmm, seem to have one screw left over - turned it on and it works just like new. The leftover screw must not be critical, but I'll save it anyway.

If you don't have a rivet gun, I'm sure a small nut and bolt would work fine, or you could wire it together after drilling the hole.

BTW, this doesn't require any great talent to fix.... I'm a 60 yr. old woman, just stubborn enough to refuse to give LitterMaid the satisfaction of selling me a whole new unit, which they were only too happy to offer to do when I emailed them requesting info on the spring replacement.

I've had a LitterMaid for my 2 cats for at least 3 years. Yes, it's icky sometimes, and if the litter is as deep as the directions suggest, it bogs down. Keep the amount of litter at a minimum, and it should be fine. I bought the tent - what a waste of money - a huge hassle to clean the tray with it, and it broke the first time one of the cats decided to hop on top. I much simpler solution to the litter mess is to set it inside a cardboard box, deep enough that it discourages the cats from exiting over the sides. A lid over the cardboard box would aid in hiding the box, but I set up an 18" high folding screen along the side to control the mess.

Very nice fix!

Sounds like you were lucky that the spring broke so close to the end. I thought about doing the same but mine broke at about the halfway point. I substituted a regular spring inside the box but it did not have anough space to completely retract the cord. IMHO The LitterMaid is truly a piece of junk and the customer service was horrendous.

Hi,

We also have two Littermaid Megas, one of which suffered a broken spring. We just bought another one at the time and now after two + years it quit working and my wife bought a Perfoma. It didn't really perform very well so I was inspired to repair the Littermaids to reduce the drain on our budget for new boxes by returning the Performa.

Investigation of the newer one revealed that the switch for the the safety bar had somehow become mangled and was alwasy closed. This switch actually shorts the motor if it is running back toward the home position and causes the overload circuit to shut off the motor and reverse. So this one would go to the dump position and just stay there. I straitened the contacts out and then it worked OK.

Since the new box was now working I decided to repair the old one as a backup since with ten cats any interruption of litter service is a household crisis. Since the power cable to the rake was loose and hanging out it appeared that something was wrong with the retractor mechanism. I took the unit apart, which was easier on the old one because unlike the new one it had connectors in the cable to allow separation of the control unit from the box. When I got it open the problem was obvious. The tension spring was broken and so I called Fox-International to get a new one and they told me that internal parts have not been available for about a year.

I then decided that the spring was probably a standard part and did a search at the McMaster-Carr www site since they have just about everything mechanical. There I found a spring with the same exact dimensions as the old one. The rated life was 4000 cycles which at our house must work out to about a year or two. The part information is as follows:

http://www.mcmaster.com - search for page 3471

part # 9293K44 at $4.92 ea.

Constant force spring, .312 in wide, .005 in thick, 17 in. long,
tension 1.03 pounds, 4000 cycle life.

So if you want to revive your LitterMaids you should be able to get the part here.

Good luck.

Thanks so much! I'm ordering one right now to have on hand, but with my luck something different will go wrong next time.

You can also get parts from Fox International (who provides Warranty Service for Littermaid) by calling them at 800-738-0245

I just spent the better part of a week going round-and-round with Applica by e-mail, trying to get them to tell me if they could sell me a replacement for the broken spring in my 4-year old LitterMaid (it broke in half, so no chance off just reattaching the broken end). All I could ever get out of them was "canned" replies regarding Black & Decker products, which they apparently also represent. The last e-mail I got was a denial to help me because my product was out of warranty. All I ever asked them was to SELL me the part--not make a warranty replacement.
After 2 tries, I finally got though to someone on the phone, who told me they couldn't sell me a new spring, but could sell me a new Littermaid for around $111.
Thank you, Cat Servant, for your link to the McMaster-Carr web site. I will order a new spring from them. Unfortunately, I had not discovered the broken spring until after the rake power cord wrapped itself around the rake teeth, and subsequently broke the cord the next time the rake cycled. But my husband assures me he can fix that, so hopefully this whole problem will only set me back the $5 for the spring. If not, you can bet I'm not buying another LitterMaid--Although it's more expensive, I would get a Litter-Robot, as (at least from all the customer feedback I've seen) their products appear much more reliable and they actually offer REAL customer service.

I ordered two springs to have on hand for future problems, although my temp fix is still holding. I ordered from http://www.mcmaster.com, under "constant force" > Extension spring.

I THINK this is the one I ordered:

9293K44
Stainless Steel Constant-Force Spring 4000 Cycle Life, .005" Thick, 17" L, .312" Wide
$5.17 Each

Please don't hold me to it!

-Barrie

My littermaid broke after about 4 years - first it jumped the track on one side and then the cord wrapped around the rake and snapped in the middle. I'm considering buying another LM or maybe the pricey LR, but if I could repair the LM I would.

Would someone with success at repairing the box be willing to post detailed instructions? Looks like the first step is to buy the replacement spring.

Or just buy the LR? Is it that much better? $300 for the reconditioned model with shipping seems like a lot.

Lauren at LR says the new LMs don't work as well as the old ones. Is this just fearmongering?

TIA.

I have an older one that is still working (barely) and a new one (mega) that worked for just over a year. I am going home tonight to try to fix it, it may just be the spring and if so I will fix rather than replace. I would love to get the Litter Robot but that is just too costly. I think my Mega LitterMaid can be saved and I must say that the older one is still running but I need the bigger unit since I now have 3 cats. I will say that it must be true about the new ones since mine quit after just over a year and just out of the warrenty period!

Dawn on behalf of Shadow, Buttercup & Ziebart

HI, you can get the retractor spring at www.McMaster.com p/n 9293k44 for $5.17. No drilling required works fine.

Hey Catlover! I have three cats too, and the older model of LM (I think I have a 700 or a 900) is working just fine for them. They don't need a bigger unit, since they are only in there one at a time. And I think the waste receptacles are the same size, so it shouldn't be an issue.

What's making it work great for me is that I got this awesome cabinet from LitterWorks:

http://www.litterworks.com/index.php?cP ... 50cd4aebbb

They make one for the new LitterMaid and one for the old units. I have the one designed for the 700/900. It rocks! I don't use those plastic litter receptacles any more, and just use their system with the bag. I can go a week without changing the bag (but shouldn't -- I start to smell it by then). We got ours with the oak stain, so it matches our floors. We are seriously thrilled with it. We used to have a Cat Genie that we had to deal with all the time. This system has given us zero problems.

My Mega recently broke because the wire had gotten slack in it and got caught in the rake, so when the rake went out, it pulled on the wire and broke it.
When I started to disassemble the box to repair the wire, I found that the spring was damaged as well. I started to trash the box, but thought I'd check
quickly online for a replacement and ran across this thread....awesome!!

I ordered a replacement spring, and after it arrived I started to repair the box. The wire I purchased to repair the broken wire was too stiff and it
wouldn't retract correctly. After unsuccessfully looking in a few electronic stores, it finally hit me that the wire was very similar to wire on earbuds/headphones.
I grabbed an old set of headphones with a long cord and went to work. That wire worked perfectly.

While at one of the electronics stores, I picked up a surplus 16VAC (2.2A) transformer (for $5) to "boost" my LM (read that on a different thread).

The LM is working great now.

Thanks for the info on this and other threads!!

Am suspecting a spring may be broken - rake is stuck at the waste receptacle side of my littermaid.

Can anyone tell me if I take apart the side of the control board to find the bad spring or the bar where the rake is attached to? At the cost of replacing littermaids, it's worth a shot to see if a spring can be replaced. Tried resetting the bugger without any success. 3rd littermaid (and last). I'll go back to scooping if I can't fix this one! Thank you!