18 replies to this topic

[Cameron]

I was at Whistler last week (first time back since 1993 - a lot has changed!). I must admit to being quite impressed with their gondola ... Sure, the cabins are horrifically uncomfortable, but the actual machinery itself is pretty great.

In the mid-station, on the upload side, there is a control booth. On the back wall of this booth is a long display which graphically shows the layout of the whole gondola, with the stations and towers and such. Each cabin is represented by a green LED, and you can see the display update every few seconds as the system is running. Now, there are always a few LEDs which are blinking .. and my question is: what do the blinking LEDs indicate?

I'm pretty sure that the blinking LEDs do not signify a gap (ie: missing cabin), as that is done simply by not lighting the LED in the first place. They don't seem indicate empty (or full) cabins, as only maybe 2 - 5 seemed to be blinking each time I went through.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Cameron.

[Aussierob]

Hi Cam,
The blinking cabin LED's are cabins that are "marked" by the lift operators. When they arrive at the next station a signal goes off. It's used for cabins that have "stuff" in them instead of people. It would be better if you could mark a cabin all the way to the other end of the lift. Right now it only marks to the next station and the lifty there has to mark it again for the next section. You may have noticed 2 large (4 cabin) gaps. They are shipping spaces for food/arbage/ambulance car etc..

[highspeedquad]

That seems like quite a lot for that many rides. I myself have only seen cargo cabins once, three large metal boxes that probably held food on the Silver Bullet.

[jessevanneo]

At Sunshine, Tyler and I saw somebody's luggage going up. I think they were going to stay at the Sunshine Inn. Sunshine also has another way to get luggage and people up to the village. Sunshine Suzi's the name, and it's a converted Chevy Silverado pickup with tracks in place of wheels. Tyler can give us more info. .....again ^_^

[floridaskier]

Snowbasin seems to enjoy putting resort employees (like patrollers) in the work chairs of their gondolas to ride up. Also garbage
On some lifts, there's a button on the controls that says 'Mark.' Is that related to the display in the Whistler gondola in any way?

[Zage]

WRONG!, Sunshine Suzzy is a Ford Excursion with track's insted of wheels.

This post has been edited by Zage: 17 March 2005 - 04:36 PM

[Aussierob]

Yep, the mark button is what marks the cabins. You can mark a cabin for any reason, patrol with a toboggan, injured guest, damaged cabin. etc.etc.

[liftmech]

Which zone is the cabin in when it is marked? We have the same function on the Flyer but since it was part of the control upgrade there isn't any information on which chair is actually marked. Also- do you still have the original electronics on that lift?

[Aussierob]

The counter is started by the last zone prox on the outgoing side. Ususally you press the button after the cabin before the one you want to mark leaves the terminal and it marks the one you want. (grammar?) We upgraded the controls on that lift in 1998 but the cabin marking system was retained from the original installation. It came from France and all we know how to do is recallibrate it. If it needs repair we have to send it to France and its quite expensive.

[liftmech]

I hope our mark system uses the same prox, becaue as I said there isn't any mention of it in the manual. I'll try it tomorrow and see what happens...

[Kicking Horse]

Well did you find out anything John?

[Duck]

I'm not quite sure I understand how this functions. A prox on the exit of the terminal is doing what, giving the control system a pulse, to indicate "Okay, now you know where that cabin is on the rope"? So that means there's an encoder on the bullwheel?

And then that's used to measure the distance of the haul rope and roughly indicate when that cabin is aproaching the next terminal, then using a prox switch there to verify it's arrived?

-Iain

[pete643]

Duck, on Mar 18 2005, 04:30 AM, said:

I'm not quite sure I understand how this functions.  A prox on the exit of the terminal is doing what, giving the control system a pulse, to indicate "Okay, now you know where that cabin is on the rope"?  So that means there's an encoder on the bullwheel?

And then that's used to measure the distance of the haul rope and roughly indicate when that cabin is aproaching the next terminal, then using a prox switch there to verify it's arrived?

-Iain
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think it would just count carriers. That is, it knows there are, let's say, 50 carriers on the uphill side, so the 51st carrier to enter the upper terminal is the marked one.

[liftmech]

Kicking Horse, on Mar 18 2005, 12:11 AM, said:

Well did you find out anything John?
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not yet- haven't gone to work in a while- read my blog since it's way off topic here.

[liftmech]

pete643, on Mar 18 2005, 12:44 PM, said:

I think it would just count carriers. That is, it knows there are, let's say, 50 carriers on the uphill side, so the 51st carrier to enter the upper terminal is  the marked one.
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Denpending upon the age of the lift, sometimes it simply marks a spot on the rope and then, half the line later, sounds an alarm at the oposite terminal. Newer Pomas have a marker on chair 1, so that the system can space things properly. The system then just counts carriers as you mentioned. I'm not sure how the older retrofits work, that's why I wanted to know which prox switch Rob's gondola used (my lift is a year older and has more or less the same systems). Since my computer knows how many feet it takes to stop, I'm assuming it also knows approximately how long the line is and can mark acarrier's position on the rope. 9800 feet later, it signals the opposite terminal. I really don't know but that's my supposition.

[Aussierob]

The Village gondola system is similar to our newer doppelmayrs. The system uses the pulses from the anti collision system. It knows how many pulses long the haul rope is. When a marked carrier triggers the last out going proximity it starts a counter. When that counter gets to a value equal to the length of the lift (in pulses) it sets off the siren. It needs to be recalibrated every now and again to compensate for wear on the impulse sheave liner. For multiple carriers you have mutiple counters. For the display system on the Village gondola, the computer just calculates the postion of every carrier based on it's pulse counter and lights up the appropriate LED. Cabins that are marked have a flashing LED instead.

[Duck]

Okay, so to get a tach count off the bullwheel, a separate sheave with a target/prox is used, instead of an encoder on the bullwheel?

I supose that's cheaper. Cool, makes sense!

-Iain

[Aussierob]

Doppelmayr and Poma have used this system for a long time. The Doppelmayr setup actually has 4 targets and 2 prox's arranged in quadrature so direction of the haulrope can be detected. If it didn't do this, you would get an anticollision fault after almost every stop due to movement of the return bullwheel as the lift balances out.

[lift_electrical]

You can get around the AC faults at a return station caused by the rollback of the bullwheel by activating the > than 1m toggle switch. This toggle is on the back plane of the newer 3 channel systems. When the lift is going slower than one meter, the AC system is defeated.

The CIS system is calibrated from the outgoing #11 AC prox. to the incoming #1 AC prox. at the opposite end. These are counted in impulses ( I think long impulses ) from the impulse sheave at the station the carrier is coming to. A percentage of these impulses are knocked off the total to get the red CIS bell to go off before the marked carrier reaches the station.