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Why is my elliptical trainer noisy?

10/24/2014

Or, Handy Maintenance & Service tips for Residential & Commercial Elliptical Trainers.

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Elliptical service tips.
"Help. My Elliptical trainer is knocking when I use it."
"My Elliptical trainer feels wobbly."
"My elliptical makes a whining or scraping noise."
These are the most common complaints/questions we get for elliptical type trainers and cross trainers. Here's some useful info to help understand the reasons for these problems, and what we can do about it. Repair your elliptical yourself, or give us a call. We're happy to help.
Knock and Level:
Old elliptical trainers are noisy and usually have a knock, from a rotating arm inside the flywheel housing hitting the plastic housing. This is caused by a few things:
   Ellipticals are not very rigid and are subject to a lot of torsional force (twisting around the center axis): Aggravated in residential and commercial settings by being placed on a carpet; and not kept level or properly supported. 100% of older ellipticals knock (in my experience).
If on a thick, plush carpet, can't really level. Put a piece of 3/4" OSB under the machine. We will do this for our for customers for $55 +tax and trip.
   If on a hard, level surface, then check the level of the machine, and adjust so that it is level. MAKE SURE leveller feet are still there and still have the little rubber foot.
   The wear bushings in ellipticals wear out over time, and make the arms and limbs looser than original fit. When this gets too bad, the foot platforms will actually start to rotate or pronate. PARTS ARE CHEAP to replace, but is a lot of labor.

Wear.
Ellipticals biggest wear items are the rollers for the left and right platforms. They should be wiped clean before every use, but this rarely happens. Dirt builds up and the wheels wear, spall, or chip unevenly. This affects the ride, feel, and noise of the machine. Inspect the wheels carefully on every machine. Replacement is warranted for uneven wear on the wheel of any kind.

The flywheel housing.
This is difficult to get in to. Fasteners are hidden. The rotating arms are very hard to remove, and it is hard to maneuver the plastic housing around.
CALL technical support if you need to take the housing completely off.
Use extra caution when the housing is off and still around the rotating arms.
disassemble as little as possible.
DON"T take it apart if you don't have the tools and personnel to put it back together.

Drive belt:
This is a wear item. It needs to be checked during a service. Look for rubber spall or rubber bits inside the housing as a sign of wear. Inspect the belt for dry rot, cracks, glazing, and splitting. Check the inside grooves of the belt: grooves should be pronounced, not worn off, and not all filled up with gunk, dirt, and hair. Replace if any of those conditions exist.

Frame assembly, uprights, console, arms:
These things are supposed to be checked and tightened on a routine basis, which does not get done in most cases. The elliptical arms become loose and wobbly. Check and tighten assembly points, which are usually hidden behind plastic body parts/shrouds. Usually need metric allen wrenches or phillips drivers.

all for now.

That's it for now. Go forth and don't break anything :)

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What's Killing Your Treadmill?

10/2/2014

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Or, How to avoid the most costly treadmill repair bills.

   Bottom line up front: Perform routine maintenance and service on your treadmill every 6 months at a minimum, in order to avoid expensive ($500) repair bills.

   The single biggest cause of major component failure in treadmills, from Full Commercial down to Residential quality machines, is one simple thing: Dirt!

   Back story: Treadmills and other pieces of fitness equipment have been built to last "forever" in the settings they were built to serve. That is to say, a full commercial treadmill is built to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, for at least the length of the warranty period. Usually that's from 2-5 years. Frames and motors are warrantied for life.

   Light Commercial treadmills are designed for up to 6 hours of use per day.

   Residential treadmills are all over the board, but we can lump them together and say that they are good for "a couple" hours of use per day.

   However, even some of today's new residential rated treadmills have guaranteed for life frames and motors. It's safe to say that treadmills in particular and fitness equipment in general is built exceedingly well and should provide years and years of faithful service to your runners, guests, and residents.

   But they break, and the repairs are often more than replacement cost for residential models:
Typical motor failure, parts and labor, $500.
Typical board failure, parts and labor, $450.
Typical belt failure, parts and labor, $350.

   Repair bills go up from there. Repair parts for commercial equipment, especially some of the older models are quite expensive, as they are no longer made new and must be re-manufactured, or are made by aftermarket specialists. Residential treadmills are usually inexpensive on the front end, but very difficult and expensive to fix in the long run. Like computer printers, it's usually easier and less expensive to just buy a new one.

    SO back we go to the topic: Why do these "built to last" treadmills break? It's dirt, more than anything.

   What happens?

   If the treadmill is not serviced about every 6 months, things start to go bad. Like a liver, it takes a long time for the abuse to show up, and then when it does, it is catastrophic, usually resulting in major component failure (belt, control board, motor). Dirt, hair, dust and other contaminants build up between the walking belt and the deck, around the motor, and on the control board, not to mention all over the working parts of the treadmill.

   Increased Friction: Dirt builds up between the walking belt and deck, increasing the friction between these two critical parts. Sometimes people put in more lube. Sometimes that helps, but if the belt wasn't cleaned ahead of time, it can hurt. More dirt gets stuck in there, which increases the friction. When there is more friction, the motor has to work harder to move the belt at the right speed. More work draws more power. More power going through the control board generates excessive heat. Components start to fail.

Wicking Lubrication: What is that? Modern roller bearings, like those on the front and rear roller of the treadmill, are lubed for life, meaning we never need to get in there and add more grease, and the bearing should last the entire life of the equipment. But we still see bearing failure caused by dirt. Hair and fine dust particles actually work there way in to the bearing and start to add friction, which generates heat. This dirt and hair also starts to wick away the oil in the grease.
(side note: grease is a compound made of of liquid oil, held in suspension by a soap sponge). Added heat brings more oil out of suspension, which means more of it wicks away from the bearing, which increases the heat.. and You see where this is going. Over a while, we get bearing failure. Along the way, though, we added to the work the motor had to do in order to keep the belt moving, and hastened along the eventual control board failure.

   Unusual Wear and Tear: While the walking belt and deck are dirty, they are wearing at an unusual rate. Too much dirt, and not enough lubrication will cause premature failure of both the deck and the walking belt.

Routine service is the single best thing we can do to keep that treadmill running right and not need extensive repairs. Every 6 months, a competent professional should spend an hour taking the machine apart, inspecting, cleaning, and lubricating. It's like changing the oil in a car: It's easy and cheap, unless it is not done, and then stuff gets expensive real fast.

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Why is my elliptical trainer noisy?

Or, Handy Maintenance & Service tips for Residential & Commercial Elliptical Trainers.

What's Killing Your Treadmill?

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