Most common parts that fail on ellipticals?


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Old 08-19-19, 03:49 PM
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Most common parts that fail on ellipticals?

I have a 20 year old Life Fitness X3 Elliptical trainer with about 2,700 hours used on it. Many of the parts are no longer available even through 3rd party parts vendors. I've replaced the plastic footing pieces (both started to crack after 19 years). Recently I replaced the power supply. Fortunately there's no shortage of those.
But now I'm thinking what might be next to fail. And because it may become impossible to find parts at some point, I'm thinking about preemptively buying the most common parts such as the belt that goes around the wheel.
 
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Old 08-20-19, 04:04 AM
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Electronics would be my guess for failure. You can keep an eye on Ebay and consider buying another machine as a spare parts donor as you really don't have an idea what may fail next.

If a control board does fail there are companies that do circuit board repair. The question will be whether or not the cost is worth it for a machine of that age.

You can get a belt now but that is a somewhat standard part. You may not find it listed as being a part for your machine but if you can measure you belt you can likely find a replacement.
 
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Old 08-20-19, 05:04 AM
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Most common failure was always the bushings, first to go being the ones where the handles meet the control or upright bar in the front. they are not bearings and will wear, especially if someone uses the arms to pull through the stride. Can pack with some good bearing grease to help, but once those start to go, your done.
 
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Old 08-20-19, 08:42 AM
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I spoke to Life Fitness. The tech thinks it's the power supply so I've ordered a new one (unit was beeping with no rhyme or reason). We'll see what happens.

I used a voltometer to test the PSU and it was gyrating back and forth between -.08 volts and .08 volts.
 

Last edited by AndyRooney; 08-20-19 at 09:04 AM.
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Old 08-21-19, 09:20 PM
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.08 is not a power supply voltage. +.08 to -.08 is hardly even measurable.
I have a feeling you weren't measuring in the proper location.
 
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Old 08-21-19, 11:54 PM
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I just got the new power supply today. With the voltometer it measures between .09 and -.09 when set to 20 volts. Machine works fine now! So that drop in .01 volts was the problem.
To test it, I stuck one voltometer prong inside the power end and touched the ouside sleeve with the other prong.
 
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Old 08-22-19, 05:04 AM
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+/- 0.9 V tells me you may have an AC supply with your meter set to DC.
 
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Old 08-22-19, 06:24 AM
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You're right. Tested the correct way. The new one produces 14.4 V. The old one produces 14.2 V. That slight difference caused my machine to go haywire. It's strange because these PS's say 12 VAC.
 
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Old 08-22-19, 06:27 AM
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I don't think it was the 0.2V difference. I suspect under load when attached to the machine, the PS was failing. See this before a lot. test with meter and all looks good. Pull some hair out, opt to throw a new $5 PS at the problem and fixed.
Glad to hear you are off to the races again.
 
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