6 replies to this topic

[Nor'eastSkier]

I was watching a video of the Black Mountain Express being built at A-Basin and it showed a brief shot of what appeared to be workers assembling the chairs and preparing them to be attached to the lift. I was wondering how chairs are usually attached on detachable chairlifts. I imagine that it takes less work than it would on a fixed grip lift. I think that they were putting the chairs on the maintenance rail and then somehow connecting them from there. Do they have to manual space the chairs or can they simply roll the chair into the contour and the lift will automatically space it after that? Sorry for all the questions

[liftmech]

The initial setup will be rough (meaning uneven, not difficult). The newer lifts are programmed with proper chair spacing and there is usually a 'launch light' at the end of the maintenance rail where it feeds into the main running rail. In my experience the launch light is not, shall we say, perfect. Once all the chairs are loaded on line the lift is merely run for a while to properly space the carriers. Short lifts don't take long, longer ones obviously do. You're correct in that they merely roll the chairs into the contour; the maintenance rail/halo/feed rail has a gate that works just like a railroad switch and allows the off-line chairs to come back on. (incidentally, that's how we take chairs off if they have problems).

[Nor'eastSkier]

liftmech, on 14 January 2011 - 05:36 AM, said:

The initial setup will be rough (meaning uneven, not difficult). The newer lifts are programmed with proper chair spacing and there is usually a 'launch light' at the end of the maintenance rail where it feeds into the main running rail. In my experience the launch light is not, shall we say, perfect. Once all the chairs are loaded on line the lift is merely run for a while to properly space the carriers. Short lifts don't take long, longer ones obviously do. You're correct in that they merely roll the chairs into the contour; the maintenance rail/halo/feed rail has a gate that works just like a railroad switch and allows the off-line chairs to come back on. (incidentally, that's how we take chairs off if they have problems).

Thank you for all the information, that makes much more sense now.

[JSteigs]

When I spent a summer working for Leitner-poma (the manufacturer of the lift in question), we used a different method than the one described above. Unfortunately there was no launch light on our lift, or at least not at the time. You can push the first chair into the accelerator, and count a certain number of bull wheel revolutions that is equal to one chair length, and mark the placement of the first chair. Then push the second chair into the accelerator, once the second chair reaches your mark you can push the third into the accelerator, and so on.

[LiftTech]

liftmech, on 14 January 2011 - 05:36 AM, said:

The initial setup will be rough (meaning uneven, not difficult). The newer lifts are programmed with proper chair spacing and there is usually a 'launch light' at the end of the maintenance rail where it feeds into the main running rail. In my experience the launch light is not, shall we say, perfect. Once all the chairs are loaded on line the lift is merely run for a while to properly space the carriers. Short lifts don't take long, longer ones obviously do. You're correct in that they merely roll the chairs into the contour; the maintenance rail/halo/feed rail has a gate that works just like a railroad switch and allows the off-line chairs to come back on. (incidentally, that's how we take chairs off if they have problems).

We switched the light for a beeper, I hated staring at the light.

[DonaldMReif]

Clutch spacers seem to be the type I see on the newest detachable lifts.

On Poma and Doppelmayr high speed quads built in the 1980s, the cadence chain (usually the one at the bottom) acts as a spacer, as chairs must wait for the next set of teeth. These lifts therefore have "perfect" spacing, where every chair is exactly the same distance apart.

[liftmech]

LiftTech, on 30 January 2011 - 07:48 AM, said:

We switched the light for a beeper, I hated staring at the light.

I like that idea, especially since the lightbulbs do tend to burn out.

Donald, no lift has 'perfect' spacing. Just an observation.