Troubleshooting Guide for

Limoss Systems
NOTE: Limoss is a manufacturer and importer of linear actuators
(motors) hand controls, power supplies, and cables for motion
furniture. They are quickly becoming a leading designer and
manufacturer of motion systems for the furniture industry, providing
German Engineered, high quality and competitive priced solutions for
all branches of the furniture industry. As far as troubleshooting and
repair, Limoss components are almost identical to the Okin system.

There are four components to a standard Limoss system, and we will

mention all of them in the symptoms below. Here they are in order of
the most often experienced problem:

1) Hand control: The hand control is by far the part that we sell the
most. Limoss hand controls have a circuit board built into them (why,
I don’t know, except that’s the way the West German engineers
designed the system). We could get into a long discussion as to what
the circuit board does, but we don’t really need to know (and besides,
very technical electronics explanations just give me a headache…).
The problem is that as the hand control is used — and abused
(dropped, sat on, water spilled on it, chair let down on it, etc.), the
solder contacts loosen and the control will start working
intermittently. Then at some point it quits altogether…

2) Transformer: This is the Limoss part that we have the second

most problems with. It’s not that they are abused that much (except
when liquids get spilled into them or it somehow gets under the chair
and the chair comes down on it), but the fact is that it’s operating
24/7, and nothing lasts forever. A simple check you can do is to feel
the transformer to see if it’s warm. It should be warm, but not so hot
that you don’t want to hold onto it. If it is that hot, it needs to be
replaced, no matter if it’s still working or not – house fires are really
inconvenient… If the chair won’t do anything and the transformer is
cold to the touch (assuming it has been plugged in for awhile), that
well may be the problem.

3) Motor: Many people that call in say that their chair isn’t working,
and they think the motor is out. In fact, I spend a great deal of my
days talking people out of ordering new motors… It’s sort of like if
you come into your house in mid-summer and the house is hot; you
automatically assume the compressor is out; many times (unless you
have my luck…) that’s not the case. In fact, the motor is one of the
last things I suspect in a lift chair problem… Usually, if a defective
motor is the problem, it will be pretty obvious; the motor will smoke,
or it will run but not pick up the chair, or you can hear gears grinding,
etc. The motor is hardly ever the problem if it is just dead silent and
not making any noise at all…

4) Power Cord: Unless the cord has obvious damage (which does
happen, as a loose cord can easily get caught in the chair mechanism
when it moves), cords hardly ever cause any problem. In 24 years, I
can count on two hands how many power cords I have found that
were bad without showing any external damage.

Problems
1) Nothing about the chair will work.

The most common problem is that the chair is not connected to the
electrical supply or the electrical supply is not working due to a
breaker, a fuse or a loose wall outlet in the home.
 ▪ Make sure there is electrical current at the outlet.
▪ Try plugging a working lamp into the outlet the chair is plugged
into. If the lamp lights up, wiggle the lamp plug in the outlet a
little to make sure the lamp doesn’t go out because of a short in
the wall receptacle. Then make sure the chair is connected to
the outlet (don’t roll your eyes at how stupid this sounds – you
don’t want to know the number of miles I have driven to a call,
only to find that the chair wasn’t plugged in or the wall plug was
loose).

▪ If the power is OK, then the first step is to check the

transformer.

a) Check Transformer/Motor Power Lead:

▪ Turn the chair on its side and find the leads coming from the
motor housing

▪ At the motor, disconnect the small two-prong wire coming from

the transformer.

▪ Plug the chair into the wall, if not already done (the Limoss
motor is a low volt system, greatly minimizing the danger of
electrical shock).

▪ Set your multimeter to the DC Volts setting, put your RED lead
into the SMALLER of the two openings on the cord; you will
probably have to put a paper clip or pin into the holes, then put
your lead onto that; (I don’t understand why they made the
contact points so small, but then again, they didn’t ask me…)
then your BLACK meter lead into the LARGER opening. Your
meter should read from 24 -38 volts DC current. If you get a
reading, then both the transformer and power cord are OK.
 ▪ If you get no current reading, then unplug the wire lead coming
out the end of the transformer, and do the same check
described above directly at the transformer end connector. If
you get a voltage reading there, then the power cord from the
transformer to the motor is defective. If no voltage reading, then
the transformer is defective.

▪ If there is power going to the motor, then checking the hand

control is the next step:

b) Check the Hand Control:

Note: The following procedure is very difficult to do by yourself with

your own two hands; it’s very hard to hold the plug with one hand and
your two meter leads with the other, and get both the leads on those
small pins without it touching the adjacent pins and giving a false
reading. Either have another person hold the plug for you, or put the
plug in a vise or some other holding device.

▪ Unplug the chair from the power source.

 ▪ Disconnect the hand control lead from the motor connector.
▪ Set your multimeter to the OHMS setting.
▪ Using the diagram above, place the RED multimeter lead on PIN
1 of the hand control cord.

▪ Place the BLACK lead on PIN 2.

▪ Press the switch to the DOWN position. A low reading means
the hand control is operating properly in the “recline” position.

▪ Move the BLACK lead to PIN 3.

▪ Press the switch to the UP position. A low reading means the
hand control is operating properly in the “lift” position.

▪ If either test fails, replace the hand control

Another note: With a hand control that is working intermittently, it is
possible that you could get a good reading if everything is lined up
correctly, but if you move the cord around a little, the test will fail. If
you can, have someone wiggle the hand control housing and cord
while you take the reading. If the reading fails then, replace the hand
control.

Most of the time, you will find that the hand control is the problem. In
fact, if all this is confusing, and you just want to try the “warm feeling”
method of repair, try ordering a hand control; most of the time, you’ll
be correct. We have an inside joke around the shop (“it’s always the
hand control”) when customers send in their parts for us to check. It
isn’t always, of course, but it sure seems that way.

c) Check the motor:

▪ Unplug the chair from the power source.

 ▪ At the motor, disconnect the small two prong wire coming from
the transformer.

▪ Set your multimeter to the OHMS setting.

▪ Place one lead on each pin coming from the motor.
▪ If less than one (1) ohm is read on the meter (in other words, if
you have a digital meter, and the reading ever changes), then
consider replacing the motor.

Note: Please refer to the notes about the motor above. I have seen a
great many Okin motors that checked OK with the test above (that is,
it tested to the 1 ohm reading) but the motor was bad. In reality, there
is no really good electrical test that will definitely show a bad
motor. The best thing to do (if you don’t have a known good part to
test with) is to eliminate everything else in the system and if you’re
fairly sure everything else is OK, then try replacing the motor.

IMPORTANT: When you receive the new motor, try it by plugging the
wires into the motor without mounting the motor in the chair; we can’t
take the motor back if it has been installed in the chair (it would show
use,and no one else wants to buy a used motor).

Another Note: An Okin motor cannot be checked by applying

voltage directly to the motor power leads. There is a circuit board in
the hand control and also another in the Okin motor that keeps direct
voltage from running the motor. This can be done with Dewert
motors, but not with Okin…

A Final Note: I want to repeat and re-emphasize what I said earlier in

the component section above: Most people automatically think if their
chair isn’t working, that the motor is out. As I said earlier, I spend a
great deal of my day talking people out of ordering new motors. In
fact, the motor is one of the last things I suspect in a lift chair
problem. Usually, if a defective motor is the problem, it will be pretty
obvious; the motor will smoke, or it will run but not pick up the chair,
or you can hear gears grinding, etc. The motor is hardly ever the
problem if it is just dead silent and not making any noise at all. Don’t
get me wrong: motors do go bad, it’s just not nearly as common as
most people think.

2) The chair will raise up but not recline, or will recline but won’t
raise (in other words, the chair will run one way but not the
other).

The cause of this in a Limoss system is almost always a defective

hand control. The reason is that in a Limoss system, power is
continually going to the motor from the transformer; if the chair runs
one way but not the other, that means the transformer and the power
cord from the transformer to the motor are both good (if they weren’t,
the motor would not move at all). Limoss motors almost never go
bad when they will work one direction but not the other; in fact, I can’t
remember the last time I heard of a Limoss motor that did that. The
only other component to the Limoss system is the hand control, and
as mentioned above, is the part that causes the most trouble.

3) The chair will raise up to a standing position OK, and it goes

back down to a sitting position OK, but when the chair gets to
the point that the footrest should extend and the back recline,
the chair stops moving, and you hear a grinding or squeaking
noise.

This is usually caused by a broken spindle nut inside the actuator (our
part #6258). As mentioned in the introduction above, a lift chair motor
pushes the chair to the lift position and pulls the chair to recline. If the
spindle nut is cracked or broken, it holds together to push the chair
up; the weight of the operator helps to take the chair to the sitting
position. But when the chair goes back any further, the spindle nut
has to pull to get the chair to recline; if the nut is damaged, it can’t do
that. To tell for sure, do the following test:

a) Checking the spindle nut:

Run the chair to the standing position, then push the down button to
get the chair back to the sitting position. Hold the down button to get
the chair into the recline position, until the footrest stops going out
and the chair stops going back and the problem starts.

Then, turn the chair on its side, and take the clevis pin out of the end
of the stroke tube, so that end of the motor is now detached from the
chair.

Now, check to see if the stroke tube (the long round shaft that goes in
and out of the motor) is loose inside the actuator tube; In a normal
motor, you would have to unscrew the tube out of the motor (the tube
has left hand threads). A motor with a broken spindle nut will be loose
inside the housing; usually, you can simply pull it out of the housing
without unscrewing. Replace the spindle nut, and all should be well
again.

If the spindle nut is OK, the problem may be a bent scissor

mechanism or damaged framework under the chair. Please do the
following:

b) Check for scissor or frame damage:

Turn the chair on its side, Examine the entire base of the chair for
bends or breaks. Check the scissor mechanisms for excessive wear
or broken welds. Examine the wood and the lift frame near the
scissors for scrapes or damage; The problem may lie with those
instead of the scissors. Check the end of the motor lift tube, where it
bolts to the chair; that is our Limoss metal connector (our part #7252)
, and often was the “weak point” of the motor assembly. If you can’t
tell if the noise is coming from the chair frame or the motor, try
removing the motor from the chair and manually move the chair to its
various positions; sometimes you can find the squeak easier that way.
You can also run the motor while it is off the chair; if you hear loud
noises from the motor that way, then the motor needs replacing.

4) The chair is suddenly running very slowly, and sometimes

won’t work at all if someone is stilling in the chair.

It could be that the transformer is not working correctly with the

household current, and it is now trying to work off the emergency
battery backup. In certain conditions, the transformer won’t run on
standard 120 volt power, but will still run off the batteries. To test this,
do the following:

Replace the two 9 volt batteries in the transformer with new batteries.

Try running the chair without anyone sitting in the chair; see if the
chair is running up and down, even if it still runs slower than normal.

Now, with the chair still plugged into the wall receptacle, unplug the
two 9 volt batteries

Try running the chair again; if it doesn’t run this time, then the
transformer is defective and must be replaced.

5) The battery backup system is not working.

The batteries may be dead, or battery leads may be damaged.

SOLUTION: Batteries need to be changed every 6 months (a good

idea is to do this when you change your smoke detector batteries), or
after every time they are activated due to power failure (the batteries
only have enough power to run the chair for a cycle or two, then they
will be dead). If, after you change the batteries, the backup system
still doesn’t work, examine the battery leads for breaks, cracks, etc.
You can try replacing the battery connectors If you have the room; if
not, replace the transformer, if the battery backup is important to you
(probably 90% of chairs with this feature don’t have any batteries
installed, or the batteries are dead, but manufacturers know that it is
a good selling point, so they still use them).

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIMOSS MOVING BLOCK

Thank you for your purchase of the replacement moving block

for your Limoss motor. This moving block should make the motor
work as it was when new, but it must be installed correctly in
order to function properly. There are several different ways to
install the block, but we have found that following the steps
below are the fastest and easiest:

Remove the plastic cap on the end of the aluminum shaft by

removing the two Phillips screws.

Shine a flashlight into the end of the shaft; you will find a small limit
switch on the top end of the shaft that has two wires soldered to
connections on the switch.

Take a small paper clip, and straighten it out except for a bend in one
end of the clip. Put the paper clip (with the bend end first) in the shaft
by the limit switch, hooking the wire furthest from you with the bend
of the clip. Then, use the body of the paper clip to touch the other
wire connector on the switch; in effect, you are “shorting” the switch
out with the paper clip.
While holding the paper clip in place, push the “up” button on the
hand control; if the paper clip is positioned correctly, the rest of the
old moving block should move past the limit switch and off the end of
the shaft. If the block stops when hitting the limit switch, then the
paper clip is not positioned correctly. Push the “down” button to back
off the block, reposition the paper clip to ensure that the clip is
touching both connections on the switch, and push the “up” button
again. When you have the paper clip positioned correctly, the rest of
that old block will “walk itself” off the end of the shaft.

When the old block is off the shaft, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT to shine a

light down the length of the opening on the shaft to be sure that all
the little plastic parts of that old block are out of the aluminum shaft;
if you leave any little parts of that old block in the shaft housing, then
the new block will lock up when it is installed.

To install the new block on the motor, you don’t have to use the paper
clip anymore; position the new block as it should go upon the end of
the shaft, make sure that the steel worm screw is hitting the threads
on the block (the worm screw will drop down a little after the old
block is off), and push the “down” button on the hand control, and
the new block should “walk itself” on the motor.

Reinstall the plastic cap on the end of the shaft, and you are done.