Littermaid Repair 101

I’ve been a happy Littermaid owner for a couple of years now, but lately I’ve had some bad luck.
Littermaid
I came home from Thanksgiving last year and found the rake stuck in the middle, not moving at all. My warranty long-expired, I just bought a new one for $70 on sale on Amazon.

The other day I found it stuck again, this time almost in the way back. I emailed the company to get it replaced under warranty. They responded with some cryptic instructions on how to find the model number and date code on it.

While looking for these I discovered a few things:

1) My cats have been pissing ON TOP of the Littermaid, like on where the battery compartment is. I can understand being a little off in your aim, but 3 inches up?

2) When I put in the new unit, I used the old AC adapter. It turns out that the newer one is 1000 mA, not 500 mA. I’m sure it helps to have a little more power when pushing litter. Of course swapping these out did nothing.

3) There are two contacts inside the tracks for the rake, at the very end near the bin. When either of them make contact, the rake reverses and goes back. One one side of mine, there was litter lodged in there, forcing the contact down. I removed that, flipped the power and presto, the rake moved normally again.

Now I’m wondering if that was all that was wrong with my last one.

127 Comments

  1. Hello, The rake on mine roles back & stays stuck until it starts blinking. Is there a way this can be tightened back up again? I don’t want to start any messing around until I know what I’m messing w. Sometimes it will jam when it first starts. Sometimes it will make it all the way to where it’s lifting the lid, then it will jam.
    I want to remove the claws, but not sure what I’d be looking for after that.
    The motor is still good. This is my 3rd model. I wish they’d continue making them! They are the best! Ty Kricket ??

  2. My littermaid has stopped coming back from it’s cleaning . It has stopped going up and now it doesn’t finish going up and I see what the problem is, but I don’t know how to fix it. The right side of the roller has come of track and I can’t seem to get it back on. PLEASE HELP!

  3. Any suggestion on how to get the cats to spot peeing on the waste lid? They pee on it and then when it goes up for the waste to go in the bin, the pee falls on the floor…

  4. Thank you so much for the tip about the flat ribbon! My unit is 12 years old and worked fine until the rake would just stop at random places. I took it apart to find that the flat ribbon had a cracked conductor. I guess after 12 years at probably 4+ times a day of flexing it finally gave out. I looked at getting a new one, but then just decided to put some shipping tape on the cracked end to stabilize it so it wouldn’t bend and turned it around and put the good end in the rake and the cracked end in the connector that doesn’t bend as much. So far so good! I know the Littermaid is not the perfect solution, but for me it is better than a conventional litterbox. I have modified it to empty into a Diaper Genie waste bag system.

  5. My litter maid self cleaning cat litter box is having an issue with the rake hesitating when it starts its cleaning sometimes it just gets stuck and the motor keeps running until it finally turns off, any suggestions on how to fix this issue, Ive cleaned the tracks.

  6. I am trying to find a replacement ribbon cable that feeds power to the carriage. I am having no luck finding one. Does anybody know of a company that sells them, or something that can replace it?

  7. On my Litter Maid 3 several tines on the rake broke off on the right end. I have searched eBay and no luck. I can’t believe that this company doesn’t sell replacement parts. The rake is easily removed, so it seems like a no brainer that they would have the replacement part, it they don’t! Unreal

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