That one week in February when my sit-stand motor died mid-sentence on a Zoom call

I was on a video call with a client showing off my new desk setup when the lift mechanism just gave out and my monitors dropped six inches with a loud thud. $280 to replace the motor and I lost an entire afternoon rerunning all the cables. Has anyone else had a motor go bad and found a cheaper fix?

2 comments

2 Comments

finley_smith1d ago

Did you try just reseating the cables before replacing the motor? I had a similar thing happen with my standing desk where the motor would just stop mid-motion, and it turned out the wiring harness had a loose connection that I fixed with a zip tie and some electrical tape. I mean, it held up for like another year before I finally got around to swapping out the whole actuator assembly, and that saved me the cost of a brand new lift system.

parker_webb1d ago

Man, that's rough... I've been there with a dual monitor setup too. Honestly, the cheapest fix I found was just gutting the motor housing and swapping in a used linear actuator from a broken hospital bed I grabbed off Craigslist for twenty bucks. You gotta be careful with the wiring polarity or you'll fry the controller board, but it's way cheaper than buying the OEM part. Just make sure you measure the stroke length exactly or your desk won't go back to the same height.