"Your buffer is no good — it worked for two months and then stopped." We hear this often. About half the time, the part is replaced and the problem is still there.
Order matters. Here is the sequence, sorted by how often each cause turns out to be the real one.
1. Check the slide first, not the damper
This is the most common cause and the most often misdiagnosed.
A damper only covers the last part of the travel. The slide has to carry the drawer smoothly into the engagement zone before the damper can do anything. If the slide is stiff, noisy, or sags under load, the drawer never reaches the engagement zone — and the symptom is exactly "it closes softly only sometimes".
How to tell: take the drawer out and push the slide alone. If the slide does not run freely, the damper is not your problem.
2. Is the drawer overloaded?
Every mechanism has a weight it can pull home. A drawer packed with tools, or a heavier front panel fitted after the fact, can push it past that limit. The symptom is "it closes, but not fully" or "it gets less soft over time".
How to tell: empty the drawer and test again. If it works empty and fails loaded, it is a load problem — you need a stronger model, not a different supplier.
3. Does the engagement point actually line up?
The damper is triggered by a hook or catch at a specific point. If the mounting position is a few millimetres off, the catch engages only occasionally — which produces the failure that looks most like random breakage.
How to tell: push the drawer slowly and watch where the catch picks up. Then check whether it picks up at the same place every time.
4. Temperature
Damping depends on fluid. Fluid viscosity changes with temperature, so a mechanism feeling different in winter and summer is normal.
Our mechanisms are designed for −20 °C to +60 °C. If your application goes outside that — outdoor cabinets, cold storage, close to a heat source — say so up front and we will change the damping medium.
5. Only now suspect the part itself
If the first four checks are clean, then look at the mechanism: seal wear after long service, or contamination in the oil path.
What you should see in that case is a gradual decline over months — not a sudden failure. A sudden failure almost always points to assembly or something external.
When it really is time to change supplier
Our advice: look at whether the same problem appears across a whole batch.
- A few parts failing → usually assembly or application. Work through the checks above.
- A consistent proportion failing within one batch → the specification is wrong (force, stroke, or slide losses not accounted for), not the individual part.
In the second case, changing supplier will not help either — the parameters are still the same parameters. What actually needs to happen is that the parameters get re-checked.