78 replies to this topic

[Kicking Horse]

SkiLiftsRock, on 23 August 2010 - 03:51 PM, said:

Most of those signals I have never herd of before. With that 1 beep, why would you do that, and also what if it was an accidental hit?

the 1 beep came from the old days. they left it in the manual.

[SkiLiftsRock]

On Detachable's there is not a standard speed control button on the standard button panel (Fast, Slow). They are on the Drive unit. Instead there is a switch or nob the the operators turn. I have never read what each position does, and is this an efficient way because if one operator forgets to put the nob back to normal wouldn't someone have to go to the panel and reset it?

If anyone has a picture of this or any information on this setup I would appreciate the information.
Thanks a lot :)

[Kicking Horse]

The only type of Speed control swich I know of is a 2 position switch like the stop button, Leitner uses it for the Slow button, push it in the lift slows and will remain on slow until pulled out.

Kicking Horse at Silver Creek has this setup, Along with Quickdraw Exp. Again at Silver Creek.

[mikest2]

Hard to understand exactly what you are trying to ask.
Let's take your typical middle aged Doppelmayr detachable with a DC drive. On the operator's main panel, there is a speed control potentiometer, this adjusts the maximum speed of the lift (ie: you can dial it down)
Also on the operator's main panel and all the remotes is a speed control (rotary switch), it has neutral and medium maintained positions, and momentary low and fast positions.
First you pick your max speed, slow day, maybe 4.2 m/s, so you dial down the pot til the lift runs at 4.2. In normal operation the speed controls are all in the neutral position. If you want to slow the lift, you can click the switch into the medium position, the lift slows to the preset medium speed, if you want to go to low, you twist the switch to low and release it, the lift slows to 1 m/s. When you want to speed up again, the operator returns the switch to neutral, signals the other station, gets a signal back, then twists the speed control to the fast position and releases it to the neutral position and the lift follows it accel ramp back to the preset speed. If you only wanted to go back to medium, you would twist the control to fast, then return it to the medium position, the lift would then only accelerate to the preset medium speed.
In some cases the low, med and fast speeds are derivitaves of the design speeds, sometimes they are derivitaves of the potentiometer setting.

Hopes that answers your question

[Kicking Horse]

Here are a few control panels from the lifts I ran during the 09-10 season.

This post has been edited by Kicking Horse: 09 September 2010 - 09:06 PM

[SkiLiftsRock]

Kicking Horse, on 09 September 2010 - 08:58 PM, said:

Here are a few control panels from the lifts I ran during the 09-10 season.

Thanks for the pics. Who did the first panel? The second one was Poma. Also were these detachables?


And in this link is a picture of the nob switch I am questioning: http://www.skilifts....ewimage&img=787

Thanks for all of your help :)

[mikest2]

SkiLiftsRock, on 10 September 2010 - 09:50 AM, said:

Thanks for the pics. Who did the first panel? The second one was Poma. Also were these detachables?


And in this link is a picture of the nob switch I am questioning: http://www.skilifts....ewimage&img=787

Thanks for all of your help :)

The word is knob, and the above picture is of the Doppelmayr rotary switch that I explained the operation of.

[SkiLiftsRock]

mikest2, on 10 September 2010 - 02:02 PM, said:

The word is knob, and the above picture is of the Doppelmayr rotary switch that I explained the operation of.

Thanks for that information Mikest2

[Kicking Horse]

SkiLiftsRock, on 10 September 2010 - 09:50 AM, said:

Thanks for the pics. Who did the first panel? The second one was Poma. Also were these detachables?


And in this link is a picture of the nob switch I am questioning: http://www.skilifts....ewimage&img=787

Thanks for all of your help :)

The first panel is a custom build. It's for a Poma Fix Grip.



The 2nd panel is a Poma HSQ

[Lift Kid]

Kicking Horse, on 09 September 2010 - 08:58 PM, said:

Here are a few control panels from the lifts I ran during the 09-10 season.

My favorite aspect of that first picture is the label at the top of the panel...

[liftmech]

Yeah. Fun with labelmakers.

[Kicking Horse]

If you are ever a lift operator and you want a lift that you can sleep on Campgound is the lift to work mid week on a non powder day...........

(granted if you do sleep you will be fired...)

[SkiLiftsRock]

liftmech, on 11 September 2010 - 01:40 PM, said:

Yeah. Fun with labelmakers.

I showed this to my friend and he said he did the same with his garage door button.

[Skiing#1]

I have one question about ski lift control...

How the workers press one button or more for release the chairs off the terminals?

See the picture...the red arrow that you see the rail outside of the terminal.

Attached File(s)

•  lift rail.jpg (157.3K)
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[liftmech]

Generally the lift ops don't take the chairs off line. The mechanics do, and there are no buttons for it, just moving a few rails around inside the terminal.

[timberlaker]

Do not forget that that e-stop in almost all cases is now to be relabeled e-shutdown. So on new installations there may be an e-shutdown and an e-stop. The e-shutdown will still open the arm contactor and come to a stop via mechanical friction. The e-stop will be the equivelant of ramp-2 on detachable lifts.

[SkiLiftsRock]

timberlaker, on 17 September 2010 - 05:09 PM, said:

Do not forget that that e-stop in almost all cases is now to be relabeled e-shutdown. So on new installations there may be an e-shutdown and an e-stop. The e-shutdown will still open the arm contactor and come to a stop via mechanical friction. The e-stop will be the equivelant of ramp-2 on detachable lifts.

Hi,
Would you mind explaining that a little more? I did now under stand the fact that there is two stop buttons now? And what the difference is?

Thanks,

[Peter Pitcher]

In the old days, lifts just had two stop buttons, one at the top and one at the bottom. There were no tower switches, stop gates counterweight travel switches etc. The stop button when it was pushed opened a circuit that deenergized the motor contactor and the lift stopped. This button usually automatically reset. Chairlifts ran like this for many years but eventually someone decided to add a safety circuit that had to be closed before a lift could be started. This was sometimes referred to as the safety circuit or the green light. You had to have a green light before you could start the lift and if the circuit was opened or broken then you lost the green light and a relay opened and power to the lift was interrupted. This green light circuit usually consisted of all the tower switches, couterweight travel switches and e-brake open switch and some others. It also could be opened by a E-stop button and lift operators have been confused ever since. A change came to address this confusion and the E-stop became the emergency shutdown button. Generally the only difference between a normal stop and an E-stop was that the E-stop required that the E-brake had to be pumped up again. The stopping distance was supposed to be the same but in some cases the E-stop resulted in a longer stopping distance. In our training, the only time an operator was to push the E-stop instead a normal stop was when the normal stop failed to stop the lift. It can happen but very rarely. In practice most lift operators use the E-stop like it was labeled PANIC. Interestingly, in the latest SAM there is a reference to a lift operator who they say screwed up when he pushed slow instead of E-stop when he should have just pushed stop. As lift drives have become more complex, the normal stop is all that is required to stop the lift immediately but the emergency shut down removes all the power from the drive which is often not a good thing. For the last ten years or so the emergency shut down button is protected so an operator has more difficulty shutting off the lift this way, but it still happens, it is still regarded as the PANIC button.

[SkiLiftsRock]

Peter Pitcher, on 19 September 2010 - 07:39 AM, said:

In the old days, lifts just had two stop buttons, one at the top and one at the bottom. There were no tower switches, stop gates counterweight travel switches etc. The stop button when it was pushed opened a circuit that deenergized the motor contactor and the lift stopped. This button usually automatically reset. Chairlifts ran like this for many years but eventually someone decided to add a safety circuit that had to be closed before a lift could be started. This was sometimes referred to as the safety circuit or the green light. You had to have a green light before you could start the lift and if the circuit was opened or broken then you lost the green light and a relay opened and power to the lift was interrupted. This green light circuit usually consisted of all the tower switches, couterweight travel switches and e-brake open switch and some others. It also could be opened by a E-stop button and lift operators have been confused ever since. A change came to address this confusion and the E-stop became the emergency shutdown button. Generally the only difference between a normal stop and an E-stop was that the E-stop required that the E-brake had to be pumped up again. The stopping distance was supposed to be the same but in some cases the E-stop resulted in a longer stopping distance. In our training, the only time an operator was to push the E-stop instead a normal stop was when the normal stop failed to stop the lift. It can happen but very rarely. In practice most lift operators use the E-stop like it was labeled PANIC. Interestingly, in the latest SAM there is a reference to a lift operator who they say screwed up when he pushed slow instead of E-stop when he should have just pushed stop. As lift drives have become more complex, the normal stop is all that is required to stop the lift immediately but the emergency shut down removes all the power from the drive which is often not a good thing. For the last ten years or so the emergency shut down button is protected so an operator has more difficulty shutting off the lift this way, but it still happens, it is still regarded as the PANIC button.

Wow. Thanks for all of that information. If I understood that right, always use normal stop because it is better on the equipment and E-Stop if normal stop doesn't work?

Thanks Again,

[Allan]

SkiLiftsRock, on 19 September 2010 - 09:19 AM, said:

Wow. Thanks for all of that information. If I understood that right, always use normal stop because it is better on the equipment and E-Stop if normal stop doesn't work?

Thanks Again,

In the case of normal daily operations that's basically it; however as with everything there are variables. The Emergency Shutdown would also be used for other reasons. I've used the E-Shutdowns in motor flashover and bearing failure situations where I didn't want the drive to electrically decelerate the lift, I just wanted it off. These situations should be few and far between though. When I was a lift op we were also taught to use it when someone's life may be in danger (guests or staff) or the lift equipment could be damaged. We're all fixed grip though; and at least the way ours are setup - all do stop faster (by 1.5 - 2 meters) with the E-Shutdown.