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Drive Shaft Lifts vs Above Drive


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#21 julestheshiba

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Posted 10 April 2016 - 04:13 PM

View Postsnoloco, on 10 April 2016 - 12:17 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure that none of Poma's Falcon terminals had overhead drives like we're used to seeing today. The drive was always housed in a separate Alpha terminal, or it was a vault drive. From what I understand, all of Poma's Falcon HSQ's with vault drives were top drive. If a lift was bottom drive, it always got the Alpha-Falcon setup.

The Falcon gondola terminals usually had vault drives, but Stowe has an overhead bottom drive on their gondola. It's also part of a larger building, so maybe that gave them the extra space for an overhead drive. The Whistler Village Gondola, as well as the gondolas at Stratton and Aspen use this terminal with a vault drive.

The Flyer and the Colorado Super Chair were the first generation of falcon type chairs and I believe they eventually changed the design.
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#22 julestheshiba

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Posted 10 April 2016 - 04:14 PM

The newest vault drive lift I know would be the Peruvian lift at Snowbird.
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#23 snoloco

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Posted 10 April 2016 - 04:48 PM

View Postjulestheshiba, on 10 April 2016 - 04:13 PM, said:

The Flyer and the Colorado Super Chair were the first generation of falcon type chairs and I believe they eventually changed the design.

According to this site, 1987 was the last year for the Falcon terminals for chairlifts. They were used in the United States for the 85, 86, and 87 construction seasons. The Falcon terminals for gondolas were used at least until 1991 because the Mansfield Gondola at Stowe has them. Skyeship Gondola at Killington was built in 1994 and has the gondola version of the Challenger terminals (called Competition Gondola Terminal on the lift ID page on this site). I believe the first year of the Challenger terminal for chairlifts was 1992, because the Sunbowl Express at Sunapee (formerly Northstar Express @ Okemo, installed 1992) has them. If anyone can confirm this, please let me know.

#24 liftmech

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Posted 11 April 2016 - 12:31 PM

The Performance terminals (what everyone has been calling the Falcon) were a French model. Starting in 1988, Poma of America began designing and building their own terminals. If the lift was imported from France it most likely had the Performance terminals until GJ had the bigger gondola-sized ones in production, which I'm guessing from your info must have been around 1992. That follows with what some of my parts lists mention where certain parts only fit '88-'92 lifts.
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#25 vons

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Posted 11 April 2016 - 03:44 PM

View Postjulestheshiba, on 10 April 2016 - 04:06 PM, said:

Yes that is what I meant I will change the question. Why I thought it would be slower would be due to torque being lost in the vault shaft and the friction from the weight of the bullwheel on the gearbox and everything it is touching.

Drive shafts only transmit torque loads. There could be minor losses from the bearings but overall nothing is lost by the shaft itself just transmitted to other components such as pulleys, gears or couplings.





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