A machine that has started making a new noise is almost never a machine that's dying. It's usually one of three things, and the first one costs nothing and takes an Allen key.
This page is about the floor-standing Premium machines: the Premium, Gold, Purple, Original and Servok. They share one architecture, and everything below follows from it. The Capsule, Mini, Traveler and Tabletop are built differently and don't have the parts described here.
New Noise Is Not Wear
It's the same story every time. The machine was quiet, then one day it wasn't, and the owner has decided the motor is on the way out.
It rarely is. A Premium is a motor turning a rotating arm, which drives a sliding block back and forth along a rod. Those parts are bolted together, and bolted things loosen when you run them hard. What you're hearing is usually slack, not damage.
Work through it in order and you'll know within ten minutes whether it's a five-minute fix or something that needs to come back to us.
Know the Three Parts
Almost all noise comes from one of three places, and you can name them from the outside.
The motor sits in the housing. The rotating arm is what the motor turns. The sliding block is the part that travels along the rod and carries your attachment.
The two butterfly screws are your access to all of it. The right one holds the thrusting bar. The left one sets stroke length and disconnects the arm from the block. Learning which is which is most of the job.
The Fix, In Order
1. Tighten the two hex screws
Where the motor meets the rotating arm there are two hex screws, one 2 mm and one 4 mm. This is the first place HiSmith tells you to look, it's free, and it's the one to try before anything else. Power off, unplug, and check both are tight.
If that silences it, you're done. It was slack, not wear.
2. Feel the sliding block by hand
Still noisy? Power off and release the left butterfly screw to separate the connecting rod from the rotating arm. Now push and pull the sliding block along the rod with your hand.
You're feeling for friction. It should move smoothly. If it drags or catches, the rod wants grease, which is the next section. If it moves freely and the noise is still there with the arm disconnected, the noise isn't coming from the block.
3. Run it with the arm off
With the connecting rod still disconnected, turn the machine on. You now have an unloaded motor and nothing else.
If it's quiet, the noise was in the arm or the block, and you've already found it above. If it's still noisy with nothing attached, it's the motor, and that's where you stop and talk to us.
4. If you've greased it recently and it still drags
A sliding block that has too much friction shortly after being greased is a sliding block that has had it. That's a part, not a fault you caused, and it's a conversation with us rather than a project for you.
Grease, Not Lube
Here's the one nearly everybody gets wrong, and it's an easy mistake because of what shop we are.
The rod does not take sex lube. Not water-based, not silicone, not the bottle sitting next to the bed. It takes high-temperature wheel bearing grease, which is an automotive product. Any auto shop, Supercheap or Bunnings will have it. Mobil Polyrex EM is the one HiSmith names if you want to match it exactly, but they're clear that any high-temperature wheel bearing grease does the job.
Do it every three months whether it sounds like it needs it or not. That's the whole interval, and it's the difference between a machine that's quiet in year three and one that isn't.
Two things not to grease. The motor doesn't need oiling, ever. And keep grease away from the KlicLok mount: that's a connector, it needs to be clean and dry, and grease there just collects grit.
Water-based lube still belongs on the attachment. It just never goes anywhere near the rod.
The Wearing Part Nobody Mentions
The height adjustment clamps on either side of the machine are consumable. They're designed to wear, and the thing that wears them fastest is people cranking them down as hard as they'll go.
Tighten them until the machine holds its height. That's it. Going past that isn't extra safety, it's just spending the clamps early.
While you're there: don't wrap the power cable around the frame. Cable-tie it clear of the moving parts. HiSmith is explicit about this one and the reason needs no explaining.
Thirty Minutes On, Then Rest
Run a machine for more than half an hour in one go and it wants a few minutes off. Heat is what kills motors, and this is the cheapest thing you can do for yours.
It's also worth knowing that a machine that's suddenly hot, or suddenly louder mid-session, is telling you something. Stop it. It's not being dramatic.
Cleaning, Which Is the Easy Half
- Power off and unplug first. The motor and the cable box are not waterproof, and neither is anything else on this machine.
- Attachments: warm water and mild soap, or a toy cleaner, then air dry. Either works on silicone. What matters more than the product is that it actually dries before it goes away.
- Never silicone lube on silicone attachments. It degrades them. Water-based only, every time.
- Body: a barely damp cloth, kept well away from the power port and the controller socket.
- The KlicLok mount: a soft brush, dry. An old toothbrush is the right tool. Debris in the grooves is what makes an attachment feel loose or refuse to click.
- Store it dry. Sustained humidity rusts the metal and can reach the circuitry. A cupboard, not a bathroom, not a garage in a Queensland summer.
- Anal to vaginal use means washing the attachment properly or changing the condom. Every time, no exceptions.
Water-based lubricant lives in Lubes and Essentials. The grease does not, and we'd rather tell you that than sell you the wrong thing.
Where to Stop
Tightening screws, greasing the rod and cleaning the mount are all owner jobs. Opening the motor housing is not.
If the motor is noisy unloaded, if the sliding block drags after fresh grease, or if anything electrical is behaving oddly, stop there and contact us. Every machine carries a one-year warranty, and your rights under Australian Consumer Law sit on top of that and aren't capped at twelve months.
Come to us, not the manufacturer. We're the ones who sold it to you, the stock is in Brisbane and Melbourne, and a claim here doesn't involve posting a heavy metal object to another country. Take a short video of the noise before you get in touch. It shortens the conversation enormously.
Why Buy From Pleasing Strings
We hold HiSmith stock in Brisbane and Melbourne, so your machine ships from inside Australia. Order before 10am and it goes out the same day. Shipping is free over $99, and it arrives in plain, unbranded packaging with a discreet billing descriptor.
The HiSmith machines and accessories range keeps the machines and the parts that fit them in one place. If something on your machine is doing something this page doesn't cover, ask us. We'd rather answer the question than process the return.
Related guides
- Setting up your machine, step by step
- Which HiSmith model should you actually buy?
- First-time buyer's guide to HiSmith machines
Ebony looks after the machine range at Pleasing Strings. If your machine is doing something this page doesn't cover, email sales@pleasingstrings.com.au and ask for her. Send a short video of the noise.
Last updated: 16 July 2026
