Hey folks. As with some of you, my PHP 2026 chair appeared to give up the ghost with symptoms exactly as Desertrider described in the very first post here.
My chair is over 13 years old, and I had just paid a local upholsterer over $700 to repair all the vinyl parts that the mechanical wheels had beaten through over the years. (It was a lot of damage. So much so that there was no way to continue using the chair for any type of massage.)
Literally less than two weeks later, nothing on the chair continued to work except the seat vibration... (ugh!).
I stumbled across this post. (First many thanks to Desertrider for his initial post and to Kevin for following up several times with very helpful information - not the least of which was locating a Toroidal Transformer distributor in the U.S. without needing to have the replacement part built in China.)
Anyway, I bought the specific transformer Kevin provided a link to (about $72 after tax & shipping). I was admittedly a bit nervous purchasing it because even though all other specs on this part were in line with Desertrider's recommendations, there was one that didn't match. He
emphasized the need for the transformer's outside diameter to 96.5mm or less ("must be..." he wrote).
The one Kevin recommends is 112mm. When I measured the chassis that holds my original Toroidal Transformer, it didn't look like it would fit. Kevin said his fit fine by moving it around a bit. I wasn't confident, but decided it was either try that or look for a rebuild out of China.
Well, good news is that it
does fit. Somewhat tighter, but I was still able to get it in without really moving anything around and with the cover still relatively comfortably covering the chassis.
So for anyone else needing this transformer, despite its diameter,
it does fit.
And, btw, my chair is working now.
The other thing I want to mention are a couple files Kevin kindly provided. The first (attached) is called "hook.pdf". As part of the "I'm not an electrician" club, I was of course concerned about connecting the wrong wires and frying something in the chassis. Or burning my home down.
The pics Keven provided in that file may need a bit of clarification simply because close-in pics and reflecting light from snapshots can look confusing.
The original Toroidal Transformer that comes with the PHP 2026/2027 has 6 wires:
1 white
1 black
2 yellow
2 blue
The Toroidal Transformer that Kevin recommended has 8 wires:
1 purple
1 blue
1 gray
1 brown
1 red
1 black
1 orange
1 yellow
Great...
So to piece this all together (and before you start snipping the original transformer wires on your chair), if the pics aren't quite clear, below is how the wires match up. At least this is how I did it, and the chair works.
However, before you start snipping plastic ties in the chassis that bundle wires together (for the purpose of you being able to follow specific wires from start to end), in order to re-bundle all those SAME wires together when done, I used simple trash can ties as TEMPORARIES to
loosely bundle those very same wires to let me know which wires to re-bundle together when done. Then once done, I used new, real plastic ties (a couple dollars at Walmart) to bundle the wires tight, the exact same way as they were originally, and got rid of the temporaries.
Perhaps the above wire bundling steps above aren't necessary. Certainly not for those with a little experience doing electrical work. But for me the non-electrician, I wanted to restore everything in the chassis to at least close to how it was before I got involved, except with - of course - a new transformer.
Ok, so the
blue & purple wires from the new Toroidal Transformer go with the
black that the original was attached to, as per p. 1 of the first attached file (again, provided by Kevin). So three wires total reconnect there.
The
gray & brown wires go with the
white, as per p. 1 of the same file. Again, three wires connect.
The
red wire goes with the
yellow as shown in the
second attached pic. Follow that wire from its connection point back to the transformer.
The
black wire goes with the other
yellow as shown in the
second attached pic. There are a few yellow wires inside the chassis, so you'll need to carefully follow those wires back to the original Toroidal Transformer so you actually cut the correct wire before reconnecting to the new Toroidal Transformer.
The
orange wire connects to the
blue wire closest to it. (I'm not sure it matters which blue wire it connects to since they both apparently carry the same voltage. But that's how I did it.)
The
yellow wire connects to the other
blue wire closest to it.
Then I tested the functionality of the chair before I reassembled everything else (that is, before I screwed the chassis back in place, put the chassis cover back on, put the arm rests back on, etc.)
Once I verified it all worked, I then did the rest of the re-assembly.
Hope some of that is helpful. (And again, many thanks to Desertrider and Kevin who provided the helpful information!)
