Stannah 240 stair lift Ask questions and find answers to many subjects relating to electrics and electrical work

[andy e]

The stair lift goes up but will not come back down, The batteries are good, Will wind down manually, Does anyone have a solution for this problem

[BLAKEY1963]

[quote="andy e"]The stair lift goes up but will not come back down, The batteries are good, Will wind down manually, Does anyone have a solution for this problem[/quote]

andy e
Get in your stanna engineer
BLAKEY1963

[Turtleneck]

Hi Andy, I am a stairlift engineer and it seems to me that your problem is probably a down safety edge fault. Try tapping the "flappy"" bits on the downside to see if one is stuck.

If that doesn't solve the problem then it could be a multi-tude of things for which you wouldneed an engineer.

If you try to fix it yourself be very careful, these old 240's have very high a.c voltages inside !

Ifyou do get an engineer in find out the initial call out cost, the hourly rate and the cost of parts. You could get away with a bill for £100 but if you are unlucky it could be more like £1000 :shock:

[ericmark]

I will guess and it is just a guess that there is a limit switch of some type to remove power once the lift is at the bottom and this is activated now even when not at the bottom. What type of switch I would not know but the reed switch is very easy to damage only needs a knock.

[tomcoughlin]

To Turtleneck
An elderly neighbor has a Stannnah that was not working. I found a red handle and wound the stair down a bit and the chair worked on electric power. It goes down to the stop, shuts off and will then respond to the electric switch and go up to the top. At the top, when a small arm or lever mounted on the chair botom raises a wheel which is attached to an arm, a rotating cam triggers a shutoff switch. This switch is the problem. Once it's off, the power stays off (until I again manually lower the chair a bit). The interim fix is not to let the chair travel all the way to the top of the run.

I have found that I can raise the arm manually a few inches and hear a click, and after that the electric switch won't work. If I raise the lever way up and rotate the cam all the way I hear another click and the chair will work again, but the mechanical design does not appear to allow that range of movement in normal use.
Is there an adjustment or must the switch be replaced?

[ericmark]

I don't work with chair lifts but have worked with many items with limit switches. There are a number of possibilities. The switch may not normally be activated and is only there in case something goes wrong, in which case maybe nothing wrong with switch. But more likely it is to stop the chair as it reaches the top and then only allow a down option. This could be direct or through a relay and if through a relay changing the switch may have no effect. So without a circuit diagram you could swap bits without correcting the problem and could cause a lot more problems. So you have a number of options.
1) Reverse engineering i.e. you inspect and work out what everything does and make up your own circuit diagram.
2) Get a circuit diagram and study it to find out what has gone wrong.
3) Get some one who normally works on these to fix it for you.
I found the manual for the 310 model on line and it shows relays to swap motor direction. It also refers to "Ultimate limit switch" which it would seem should do as you describe and would only be activated if chair goes too far. Then two stopping limits one up and one down plus a slowing limit switch. So looking at that I would be looking for another switch which activates before the one you have found. I will guess there is a similar one at the bottom I would be comparing the action. It is possible there are two switches in same housing again compare bottom to top. What may be happening is the slowing switch is not working so it overruns stop position.

[tomcoughlin]

You have it right on the money. I discovered an electrical contact switch at the top similar to the one at the bottom. Thus, the wheel/lever appears to be a "failsafe" stop. I'll try to replace the stop contact switch. Thanks, Tom