8 replies to this topic

[chairliftsrcool]

I was snowboarding at Copper on Sunday(2/26) and Timberline Express was closed when I went down little burn, but the chair was running full speed (to the untrained eye). When the chair opened three hours later (around 2pm) the lifty said they were dealing with chair spacing issues. This is where my question comes in, does this occur often as this is the second or third time I remember T-Rex being closed specifically for chair spacing issues. I was also wondering how these issues are dealt with if passengers are aboard the lift. Ex. If the chair spacing sensor stops the lift, are those on the incorrectly spaced chair taken off (assuming the chair remains in the station) or is the lift run slowly to the top to account for the inadequate chair spacing to allow everyone off before closure?
Thank You,
Mark

[Kicking Horse]

It depends on how bad the spacing is. Sometimes The Mechs will disable the spacing system to clear the line to fix whatever the issue is. Other times they will stop the lift replace the sensor or fix whatever is creating the fault. I have seen some pretty bad spacing issues in my day and we kept the lift open but ran at a reduce speed and also was manaully spacing the chairs at the top station.

One of the mechs here will go into more detail if they so wish.

[DonaldMReif]

I skied at Vail on Thanksgiving Day 2010, and the Wildwood Express was closed most of the day because of spacing issues as well. Their spacer is in the bottom terminal. I think the issue was similar to the one here.

[vons]

I assure you it was different, Wildwood uses passive system (cadence chain) to space the chairs; Timberline is more modern and has an active system (spacing clutches).

[DonaldMReif]

vons, on 29 February 2012 - 07:54 AM, said:

I assure you it was different, Wildwood uses passive system (cadence chain) to space the chairs; Timberline is more modern and has an active system (spacing clutches).

I believe you are mistaken. The Wildwood Express is a Garaventa CTEC high speed quad. It has the tire and clutch spacer, as far as I can tell. It is not a lift that would have the chain system (like the oldest high speed quads at Vail, which are now nearing 30 years in age!).

[2milehi]

Chair spacing is 99.9% of the time goofed up in the terminal. With Doppelmayr's there are two spacing systems and they are called fine and coarse. The fine spacing is in the top terminal and the coarse spacing is in the bottom terminal. The fine spacing system is on when ever the lift is running. If something really goofs up the chair spacing then coarse spacing can be turned on and should space out the chairs in a single lap.

The only problem that I saw with this coarse spacing at Keystone is that it is only used maybe once a year. The clutch/brake is a dentured coupling device that doesn't take much to fail. When the course spacing system doesn't capture a chair, things get pretty ugly.

[vons]

sorry I was thinking Northwoods exp. not Wild.

note:
CTEC backwards = Chairs Entering Terminal Collide

[liftmech]

I-lift had issues related to the fine spacing. Seems that although the electronic side was working, e.g. the lift 'knew' where the chairs were and the display showed t hat they weren't spaced correctly, the clutches weren't receiving an input to turn themselve on and off. I didn't hear if it was a wiring issue or the output from the Pilz had gone bad, but it was one of those.

There isn't any reason to take a poorly spaced carrier off line unless it has issues of its own that are causing the problem. Normally we run the carriers in question to whichever end we can manually re-space them and life goes on as normal.

[2milehi]

The solid state relays that control the fine spacing clutches can fail in a couple of different modes. It is nice to have a manual backup, turn off spacing, and turn on a specific clutch to get you going.