16 replies to this topic

[Peter]

From the PCMR blog:
August 18, 2006
Gearbox update

As some of you may recall, last spring, we announced that we would be aggressively working to resolve the lift gearbox issues that cropped up on several of our high-speed six-pack lifts. To keep everyone up-to-date on the progress of this project, I'd like to post an update that I recently received from our Lifts manager:

[indent]So far the Payday lift has been retro-fitted with the new gear box combination and has been operating for the summer season. Silverlode and Bonanza will both have new bullwheels with the lower gearboxes installed by the end of next week. Delivery of the upper gearboxes is scheduled for early October. It is a relatively quick process to install the upper boxes since the major work involves the new bullwheels.

Work will begin on the King Con lift by the end of August. Although King Con is a quad, it has the same gearbox that failed in the 6 packs. The McConkey's lift is scheduled last since it had a new gearbox of the old type installed last season. Nevertheless, the plan is to also have it retro-fitted before the start of this winter's ski season.

[/indent]I'd like to add that it was really impressive to see how quickly our Lift Maintenance team was able to switch out the PayDay lift gear box this spring, particularly since there isn't a lot of time to work on PayDay (and Town) lifts between our winter and summer seasons!

This post has been edited by Skier: 21 August 2006 - 05:03 PM

[floridaskier]

Hopefully the new gearboxes won't cause any problems for PCMR now
How long does that kind of a job take?

[coskibum]

the king con lift was there when i last skied park city back in '96...i would have though it to be a different model or make?

[Peter]

I think PCMR just wants to get rid of all of the Kissling gearboxes just to be on the safe side. I wonder if the Yans have Kissling gearboxes also?

[floridaskier]

King Con was built in 1993. Never heard of it having any problem like the gearboxes on the six packs in the last few years, but that doesn't mean it hasn't ever had issues. They probably just want to be safe and really don't want the trouble of another evacuation of an important lift, and the bad publicity that goes along with it. PCMR handled the situation with their 3 biggest lifts going down very well, IMO. They were always up front about it

[skier14]

Question for you all is there a design flaw in the gearbox? if so what is it? and does park city have to pay for the new gearboxes?

[Peter]

I don't think the gearboxes had a design flaw when used in quads, but they did not appear to be the right gearboxes for six packs. If I had to guess, I would think CTEC was paying for them.



Here is a letter from CTEC about the problem...

Attached File(s)

•  CTEC.jpg (238.09K)
  Number of downloads: 43

This post has been edited by Skier: 21 August 2006 - 05:38 PM

[floridaskier]

Are any other resorts with late 90s CTEC six packs and Kissling gearboxes retrofitting them this year?

[SkiBachelor]

I believe Lastchair_44 was telling me that Kissling stated that resorts should run their lifts 20% below designed capacity so that their gearboxes wouldn't fail. However, I don't understand why Mr. Kissling didn't just beef them up 20% so they wouldn't fail at their designed hourly capacity.

If a resort wants to build a lift with a designed hourly capacity of 3000 pph, why would a gearbox manufacturer supply a lift manufacturer with a gearbox that is only able to handle 2400 pph rather than the designed capacity. I'm suprised the Kissling gearboxes in the Poma's six-packs haven't gone out yet. I know Super Bee at Copper has a Kissling in it, but then again that lift isn't used like the six-packs at Park City.

[Lift Kid]

Do you know if Quicksilver and Independance at Breck have Kissling gear boxes? I sure hope Quicksilver doesn't, because it will go out pretty quickly if it does. They load that lift to capacity all of the time.

[skiersage]

SkiBachelor, on Aug 21 2006, 10:11 PM, said:

I believe Lastchair_44 was telling me that Kissling stated that resorts should run their lifts 20% below designed capacity so that their gearboxes wouldn't fail. However, I don't understand why Mr. Kissling didn't just beef them up 20% so they wouldn't fail at their designed hourly capacity.

If a resort wants to build a lift with a designed hourly capacity of 3000 pph, why would a gearbox manufacturer supply a lift manufacturer with a gearbox that is only able to handle 2400 pph rather than the designed capacity. I'm suprised the Kissling gearboxes in the Poma's six-packs haven't gone out yet. I know Super Bee at Copper has a Kissling in it, but then again that lift isn't used like the six-packs at Park City.

I dont think that the Kissling gearbox is designed for less than the design capacity of the lift. Rather it is designed for exactly 100% of the theoretical capacity. Now this may not make sence at first, but the truth is that a gearbox for any lift should be able to carry 150% of the theoretical capacity (in my opinion). That way, if there are things that cause extra resistance, like failed sheave bearings or a brake rubbing, etc, the gearbox can withstand the extra pressure. Where as with one that is designed for 100% capacity, as time goes on it will wear down as did the ones at PCMR.

Lift Kid, on Aug 21 2006, 11:22 PM, said:

Do you know if Quicksilver and Independance at Breck have Kissling gear boxes? I sure hope Quicksilver doesn't, because it will go out pretty quickly if it does. They load that lift to capacity all of the time.

http://www.pomagroup.com/Detach%20prop%20d...rive%20stations

Kissling makes the standard gearbox for most Poma chairlifts. However, the one used in the lifts at PCMR is totally different. First of all, Poma has actually helped Kissling engineer this afformentioned gearbox to meet the specific standards that they wanted. Second, The lifts at PCMR used planetary hub bullwheels where as Poma lifts use a design where the bullwheel is rigidly connected to the gearbox.

There are some lifts that Poma builds that use Brevini gearboxes, like the pulse gondola at Glenwood Caverns and the FIS double at Aspen but these seem to be limited to fixed grips built after the merger.

[skier14]

Interesting stuff! So whats the difference between a planetary hub bullwheel and the one poma uses? and did kissling make gearboxes for YAN hsqs and fgs?

SVmech17, on Aug 21 2006, 10:55 PM, said:

Interesting stuff! So whats the difference between a planetary hub bullwheel and the one poma uses? and did kissling make gearboxes for YAN hsqs and fgs?

PS my hat is off for those guys at PCMR for the quick replacment of the gearboxes so far. It took us three months to do two YAN gear boxes which included taking them down and rebuilding them.

[Lift Dinosaur]

SVmech17, on Aug 21 2006, 11:03 PM, said:

Interesting stuff! So whats the difference between a planetary hub bullwheel and the one poma uses?

Not a simple answer, but I'll give it a try.
If you go to the above link to the L-P site, you will see their setup. A planetary gearbox is called such because a number of planet gears (usually 3) rotate inside a fixed ringgear in the box and as they rotate around the "sun gear / shaft", they turn this shaft. If you look at the L-P box, the output shaft is this sun shaft and the planets and ringgear are in the lower section of the gearbox, mounted to the drive frame. The bullwheel has bearings that mount to the "hollow shaft" which is rigidly connected to the drive frame also. The shaft is splined on both ends - the upper splines are turned by the planets and the lower is attached to the "feed bar" (which is also splined) at the bottom of the shaft. The hollow shaft takes all the tensioning forces and all the shaft does is turn the bullwheel.
If the planetary hub is mounted in the bullwheel, it requires an addition gearbox above it. This is usually a "right angle" or "horizontal" gearbox and is usually of a smaller size than you would see if the output shaft is connected directly to the bullwheel (Kissling 800, 940, 1100 seen in older YAN's). The output shaft of the right angle box becomes the sungear for the planets mounted in the bullwheel, and this is how the bullwheel is turned.
Are you confused now?  P_K_Gearbox.JPG (1.56MB)
Number of downloads: 20


and did kissling make gearboxes for YAN hsqs and fgs?
Don't know about the hsq's, but YAN did use Kissling's before he developed his own planetary boxes - 250, 475, 1100.

[Emax]

and did kissling make gearboxes for YAN hsqs and fgs?
Don't know about the hsq's, but YAN did use Kissling's before he developed his own planetary boxes - 250, 475, 1100.

Yes, Kissling was involved in the initial development of the 475 and 250 gearboxes.

[skier14]

It does sound a bit confusing but i think i got the jist of it. The reason i asked about kissling being in YANs is i swear i have seen kissiling on one of our gearboxes but i wasnt sure. Most of our YAN fgs have a YAN gearbox so i thought maybe YAN co-built those with kissling than again the YAN gear boxes look gigantic compared to other gearboxes we have, as if they were overbuilt. O and a fun fact most of our hsq that were retrofitted still use a YAN gearbox and the same elec and aux motors, very few problems might i add. (lift 5 and 10 are doppelmayr)

[LiftTech]

Yan did use Kissling in their doubles. There’s two at Mount Snow.

[Peter]

Today I think Poma still uses mostly Kissling gearboxes, while Doppelmayr uses a lot of the Lohmann gearboxes.