Reviewed by Lukasz Zelezny for the Kollmorgen range. The Kollmorgen range comprises components fitted inside lifts branded Otis, KONE, Schindler, TK Elevator and more. This page is a technical reference: identify the Kollmorgen part, know its failure modes, order the right spare first time. It is not a fault-finding sheet for end users, and mechanical work on lift components is engineer-only.
Quick Diagnosis
Answer up to three questions. We'll point you at the most likely Kollmorgen fault on this page — full detail stays visible below either way.
Common Kollmorgen Faults
The kollmorgen lift problems reported most often to UK service desks — expanded in the order owners typically encounter them. Several are resolved by routine Kollmorgen maintenance rather than a call-out, and the rest are far quicker to fix when you can describe the symptom precisely to whoever handles your Kollmorgen repair.
Identifying a Kollmorgen drive or machine in the machine room
Engineer onlyConfirming the Kollmorgen drive, motor, or gearless machine fitted to your lift.
Of every Kollmorgen troubleshooting question sent to us. This symptom is among the most frequent.
The drive or traction machine of a UK commercial lift is the single most expensive component in the fitting, and identifying it accurately protects the value of every spare and every service decision.
The plate on a Kollmorgen machine gives the model designation, serial number and often the maximum load — photograph it in full.
On modern MRL (machine-room-less) lifts the Kollmorgen machine is above the shaft rather than in a separate machine room. Either way, only a competent lift engineer should be inside the space.
Building operators should ask their contractor for a photo of the Kollmorgen plate at the next visit and file it with the lift's log. Add it to the log.
Planned Kollmorgen maintenance is always cheaper than reactive Kollmorgen repair. The log is what turns a vague complaint into a booked servicing job.
Kollmorgen brake not holding or not releasing
Engineer onlyThe Kollmorgen traction brake is showing symptoms of holding failure or drag.
Read this through before booking any Kollmorgen repair. The answer is often simpler than it looks.
The brake on a Kollmorgen traction machine is a safety-critical component: it must hold the loaded car at the floor with the motor de-energised. Must release cleanly when the drive commands a start.
When a Kollmorgen brake fails to hold, the car rolls slightly at every stop and produces the classic levelling error above or below the floor; when it fails to release.
The drive trips on over-current within seconds of the call. Both are engineer-only diagnoses on any Kollmorgen machine and both are more and more urgent.
A brake fault is one of the fastest routes from "in service" to "unsafe". Building operators noting the symptom pattern accurately helps the Kollmorgen engineer diagnose the fault at the first visit.
Where the checks do not settle it, describe the symptom in your own words when you ask for Kollmorgen repair. A plain description helps far more than a guessed diagnosis.
Kollmorgen encoder feedback loss
Engineer onlyThe Kollmorgen drive has tripped with an encoder or feedback fault.
Most people arriving at Kollmorgen troubleshooting pages describe the problem in roughly these words. The encoder on a Kollmorgen traction machine reports position and velocity back to the drive.
It is the reference the drive uses to command the motor.
An encoder fault on a Kollmorgen drive shows up either as a specific coded trip on the drive display or as more and more erratic levelling at floors.
Diagnosis is engineer-only; the Kollmorgen drive log records the trip and the underlying cause is usually an encoder cable fault, a connector working loose with vibration, or the encoder disc itself contaminated.
Building operators seeing the same Kollmorgen trip repeatedly should pass the trip code to the contractor rather than accepting a mains reset as the resolution.
A short entry in the Kollmorgen maintenance log now avoids any later doubt about whether the fault was reported before the next Kollmorgen servicing visit.
Kollmorgen motor overheating
Engineer onlyThe Kollmorgen traction motor thermal is tripping the lift out of service.
Before you phone anyone about a Kollmorgen repair, work through the description below. A Kollmorgen traction motor has a thermal cut-out that fault-locks the lift when the motor winding temperature exceeds its rated limit.
Repeated thermal trips on a Kollmorgen motor are always symptomatic.
They can be caused by airflow to the machine or MRL space being blocked, by ambient temperatures in the machine room rising above the design limit in summer, by mechanical drag increasing the load on the motor, or by a fault in the Kollmorgen drive that is pulling more current than the motor can shed as heat.
Building operators should check the Kollmorgen machine-room airflow is clear and log any recent changes. The underlying cause is a Kollmorgen engineer diagnosis.
Whatever the outcome, note the date and the symptom in your Kollmorgen maintenance record. A clear history makes the next Kollmorgen servicing visit quicker.
Kollmorgen drive tripping on over-current or over-voltage
Engineer onlyThe Kollmorgen VVVF drive is showing repeated over-current or over-voltage trips.
This symptom accounts for a steady share of the Kollmorgen repair enquiries we see each month.
The Kollmorgen VVVF (variable-voltage, variable-frequency) drive protects itself and the traction machine by tripping on abnormal current or voltage.
Repeated Kollmorgen trips on the same indicator are diagnostic: over-current usually points to a mechanical load fault (brake dragging, guide-shoe seizure), over-voltage to a regenerative-braking issue where the Kollmorgen drive can't dump the energy of a descending loaded car quickly enough.
Neither is a building-operator diagnosis. The Kollmorgen drive event log is the primary source of truth.
The value of building staff noting the pattern is that it tells the engineer whether to bring parts for the mechanical or the electrical suspect. Write down what you saw and when.
Regular Kollmorgen servicing catches most of these early, and good Kollmorgen maintenance notes shorten the engineer's diagnosis.
Kollmorgen traction machine bearing noise or vibration
Engineer onlyThe Kollmorgen machine is developing a rumble or vibration that carries into the car ride.
This is one of the most common reasons UK owners look up Kollmorgen troubleshooting in the first place.
Bearing wear on a Kollmorgen traction machine is characteristically an ageing symptom: the ride quality of the Kollmorgen lift gradually degrades, a low-frequency rumble appears on travel that wasn't there at start-up testing, and vibration more and more transmits into the car.
Left alone, bearing wear ends with a machine seizure and a long out-of-service period.
The value of catching it early is huge — a planned Kollmorgen bearing service is a fraction of the cost and time of a failed-machine recovery.
Building operators should log ride-quality changes on the Kollmorgen lift on the maintenance log rather than waiting for a fault to be reported by users.
If it becomes a repeat event, treat it as a Kollmorgen servicing question rather than a one-off Kollmorgen repair; recurring symptoms usually trace back to a missed maintenance interval.
Kollmorgen repair
Most enquiries that reach us are described as a Kollmorgen repair, but roughly a third turn out to be a reset, a battery on charge, or a door edge that is not quite closing. Work through the checks above first and write down exactly what the lift component does — the noise, the light, the floor it stops at. That note is what turns a vague call-out into a first-visit fix.
Anything behind a cover or panel, in the pit or shaft, or involving doors, gates and interlocks is engineer-only work. Your part of a Kollmorgen repair is to check and report: mains power on, isolator on, emergency stop out, nothing in the door threshold, and a written note of the fault code.
What Noise Is Your Kollmorgen Lift Making?
Lifts talk. Not eloquently — but a grind, a beep or an ominous silence each means something. Press play, compare, and pick the closest match.
Example sounds are synthesized approximations to help you compare — not recordings of Kollmorgen equipment.
Grinding — likely causes on a Kollmorgen lift
⚠️ Engineer only- Motor bearing at end of life on a drive unit
- Door-operator gearbox worn out
- Sheave or pulley bearing failure
Grinding from a Kollmorgen lift component in service is a bearing or gear reaching end of life — motor, sheave, door-operator gearbox, or drive input.
The correct response from a lift engineer is to spot which unit is the source (bearings and gears each have distinct signatures on a stethoscope), order the correct Kollmorgen service part, and plan the shutdown.
This is not a page for end users to work from: any mechanical work on Kollmorgen drive. Motor or door components needs manufacturer training and the correct lifting equipment.
Building managers should log the fault and route the Kollmorgen part number to their contractor.
What Light Is Your Kollmorgen Lift Showing?
Lifts also talk in light. Pick what you can see.
Steady red — on a Kollmorgen lift
⚠️ Engineer only- Drive-unit fault LED latched on the controller
- Door-operator fault indicator raised at end-of-stroke
- External enable input from the whole-lift controller withdrawn as a fault
A steady red indicator on a Kollmorgen lift means a safety input is open or the controller has latched a fault.
Nine times in ten it is something in plain sight rather than a hidden electrical failure. The right first step is simple: confirm the doors close fully. That no stop switch is left operated.
That nothing visible is holding a safety contact open. If the red clears, the lift is safe to use once it responds normally again.
If it does not, stop pressing the call button, leave the power on, and email your service company with the exact indicator state.
Is It Safe to Keep Using It?
Three questions. Ten seconds. Answer honestly.
When to Call an Engineer
Safety-critical faults need trained hands. Report the following on your Kollmorgen lift to your service provider, or use the form below:
- A fault that returns within minutes of a reset.
- Burning smell, smoke, or visible damage to cables or controls.
- Water in the pit, machine space or car.
- The car running outside its normal range or stopping off-level.
- Doors, gates or interlocks working intermittently.
Kollmorgen servicing
Ask any provider quoting for Kollmorgen servicing what is actually included: number of visits, whether the alarm and emergency lowering are tested each time, whether batteries and consumables are covered, and what the response time is when something fails between visits. Two quotes at the same price often describe very different contracts.
Keep every service sheet. A dated history of Kollmorgen servicing tells the next engineer which parts have already been changed, supports any warranty claim, and is the first thing a buyer's surveyor asks for when the property changes hands.
Kollmorgen at a glance
Quick reference: how Kollmorgen lifts are built, how they show faults, and where the official documentation lives.
- Segment
- Component (controllers/drives)
- HQ / market
- USA/Germany (global)
- Key products
- Lift controllers and drive systems
- How faults are shown
- Drive fault codes on the inverter display
- Coverage on this page
- System-level
- Platform / ownership
- Fitted on UK and European installs
- Official code source
- Kollmorgen drive manuals
About Kollmorgen
Reviewed by Lukasz Zelezny for the Kollmorgen range. The Kollmorgen range comprises components fitted inside lifts branded Otis, KONE, Schindler, TK Elevator and more. This page is a technical reference: identify the Kollmorgen part, know its failure modes, order the right spare first time. It is not a fault-finding sheet for end users, and mechanical work on lift components is engineer-only.
Lift Troubleshooting is an independent resource and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Kollmorgen. See our full disclaimer.
Kollmorgen maintenance
Treat Kollmorgen maintenance as a short weekly routine: confirm the lift component responds normally from every landing, confirm the alarm is audible where somebody would hear it, and confirm the charge indicator behaves as it always has. Anything outside that pattern goes to your provider rather than into a toolbox.
Nothing in owner-level Kollmorgen maintenance involves removing covers, entering the pit or shaft, or adjusting doors, gates or interlocks. If a check cannot be done from the landing with the equipment behaving normally, it belongs to a qualified engineer.
Frequently Asked Questions
What kind of equipment does Kollmorgen make?
Kollmorgen is a component (controllers/drives) manufacturer active in USA/Germany (global). The ranges most often met in the UK are Lift controllers and drive systems.
The fault-finding below is written around the behaviour those Kollmorgen ranges share rather than around one model number.
So start here and then confirm your exact model from the rating plate before you quote anything to an engineer.
One thing worth knowing: the reference note for Kollmorgen reads "Fitted on UK and European installs". This can change whose manual actually applies to your machine.
What does the Kollmorgen display or indicator tell me?
On Kollmorgen equipment the sign is described as: Drive fault codes on the inverter display. Codes are not standardised between makers, or even between board generations within Kollmorgen, so photograph exactly what you see.
The characters, the lamp colour, the flash pattern — and report that with the model from the plate. Read the sign; do not open the Kollmorgen controller or any panel to chase it.
What is the most common Kollmorgen fault?
The fault this page opens with is "Identifying a Kollmorgen drive or machine in the machine room". Confirming the Kollmorgen drive, motor, or gearless machine fitted to your lift.
The next most reported Kollmorgen symptom is "Kollmorgen brake not holding or not releasing".
Work through the safe checks listed against each one, note what you observe, and pass that to a competent lift engineer.
All on this page stops at check-and-report: nothing here asks the maintenance contractor to force a door, move a stalled car, remove a panel or enter a pit or shaft.
How do I get the Kollmorgen documentation for my machine?
The authoritative reference for this brand is the Kollmorgen drive manuals. Kollmorgen publishes to its own channels and to registered trade accounts rather than openly.
So if you have no account, ask your maintenance contractor to supply the Kollmorgen document that covers your fitting.
Our own coverage of Kollmorgen is currently rated "System-level", so treat this page as an orientation and the manufacturer's document as the authority.
Do Kollmorgen parts have to be replaced like for like?
For anything safety-related, original Kollmorgen parts protect the compliance of the fitting as a whole. The decision always sits with the competent engineer signing the work off.
If a contractor proposes a non-original equivalent for a Kollmorgen item, ask them to record why it is suitable.