Elevator Entrance ( lift doors) - in detail

        Elevator entrance is the topic in the post. We will discuss the elevator landing entrance in detail.

First of all we have to know the conventional concept in the lift industry for the reference.  Below drawing will give you the clear idea. 

         Below is the shaft plan of a typical elevator.

You can see a label "OBSERVER". The observer is you.

Now you are facing the elevator in the direction shown in the drawing.

Now your left hand side in this condition  will be always lift's left hand side.

        I think you got the idea. When working, in the drawing we have to mention the left and right side of the lift in this way. 

        So when we say 'left side' it means the side of lift which will be in your left hand side when you are facing the main entrance. I said main entrance because there are lifts having more than one entrance.

         Now i think you got the idea of left , right , front and back side of the lift.

        We can discuss the entrance again. The entrance is the part through which you are entering in to the elevator car. Which is an arrangement for door which need to be coupled to the elevator car's door in order to operate.
        It is not as you might have thought. It is in the other way. The elevator have doors attached in all service floors which are fixed to the shaft wall at structural openings. This part is called landing entrance. The elevator car also have door. Elevator car moves up and down and stops at the level. At that time the elevator car's door will be mechanically coupled to landing entrance so that both landing entrance door and car door will operate simultaneously.  Car doors will be operated by a motor normally.

     

      So in the above drawing (shaft plan), red marked part is landing entrance. A landing entrance have many parts.

1. Door sill

2. Landing jamb/ landing frame

3. Landing header

4. Supporting brackets

5. Toe guard

6. Sliding doors

      

         These are the main parts of a landing entrance which we need take care in the drawing. You can understand these parts position in the below diagram.

In some cases the doors will not be a sliding one. There may be manually operated one.

When you come to the industry you can find various models. For understanding  the typical parts are given. These landing entrance is not that simple. it has more parts for different functions. For example

Note: The red part in the above drawing is Landing sill. In the shaft plan the part shown for Landing entrance will be always Door sill. 

1. Electrical safety contacts.

2. Self closing system

3. Door panels coupling  arrangements

4. Car door to landing door coupling arrangement.

5. Door hangers

6. Door tracks

7. Mechanical door locking system

8. Door shoes

     etc.....

         There are mainly two types of door system based on 'door panel' opening design.

1. Center opening .
2. Side opening.

Center Opening Doors

        The center opening doors are most common. Two panels will join at the center in the 'door closed' state. And open from center to left and right sides.

          Center opening doors are two panel  and multi-panel
These differences are to accommodate door system in small space as possible.
In two panel doors the clear opening we can provide is limited because the panels need enough space outside door jamb to give clear opening.  When using multi-panels the space required outside the doorjamb for opening position will become half of that of two paneled one.

        The major drawback of the multi-panels one are more maintenance. More panels means more parts more parts means more maintenance.

        In the case of high capacity lifts for cargo and car wide opening is needed , as much as car internal width. The multi-panel will help there.


Side Opening Doors

        Side opening doors are famous now , after the introduction of Machine Room Less Elevator.
In this type of Elevator the machine will normally accommodate one side of the shaft. counter weight also will be positioned in that side. to give the maximum clear opening and use the area in the shaft more efficiently side opening doors will be used.

         In this we would have missed many points. Please feel free to ask all you doubt about this particular topic and the whole elevator in the commend section. We will try to answer your queries as soon as possible.

Studying the Elevator Drawing

Before we begin if you already know this you can skip to

Studying Elevator entrance in drawings ( detailed )

If you are unfamilier about elevator basics, how elevators works and all you have to first read

Elevator Basics

If you come across any doubt please comment below. This will help us to post your question's solution. And will help you and anyone reading this article.

So back to the subject.....

           The elevator drawings are easy to read. They will be a little confusing at the first. But if you once get a hold on it then its fine. To read the elevator drawing, you must know the parts of an elevator. I mean the common parts of an elevator. The elevator have different kinds of drawings.

1. Shaft top view ( shaft plan ).
       Some will say hoist-way for the shaft (Click here if  you don't know what a shaft is ).
      This drawing shows the main bone positions of elevator guide rails, distance between rails, cabin size, shaft size, entrance size, entrance position, running clearance, counter weight position. counter weight size, etc..
   

               The above drawing shows the typical elevator shaft plan. I hope you know about the below terms already

1. Elevator car
2. Rail
3. Sill
4. Entrance
5. Counter weight
6. Shaft / hoist way

              If you don't know about the above terms please go to "elevator tree" and select your appropriate level.

             Ok. Now all of you reading this should know the above terms. The elevator/lift shaft plan is one of the main drawing that need to be understood thoroughly. This drawing is the top view  ( view from the top ).
         
            Now you can see the shaft. The inside dimensions of the shaft is the one we need to take care of. Here you can see the shaft depth and width which are the main dimensions from which we will be deriving another measurements.
           Now the actual purpose of the drawing is to give the exact guidance for shaft/ hoist-way construction and elevator/lift installation. The shaft plan is used to make the template for the lift installation. You can always refer the elevator tree in menu bar for knowing more about shaft plan.

Car DBG
The measurement is the distance between two guide rails that guide the elevator cabin , other vise called elevator car or lift car. This is an important measurement because guide rails should be completely perpendicular and parallel without any twist. The DBG ( DISTANCE BETWEEN GUIDE RAILS)    must be exactly the value given in the drawing in all along the elevator shaft.
This will determine the quality of the elevator ride in the mechanical manner.

Counter weight DBG
As in the case of CAR DBG this is the displacement between  two guide rails which are guiding the counter rails. As in the case of CAR DBG this measurement also will effect the quality of the elevator ride.

Landing clearance / Running clearance
This is the distance between landing sill and car sill. This measurement is universal. it will be always 30mm. Usually this will not be included in the drawing but we have to include this in our calculations. This measurement is so important because this small gap should be maintained all along the lift travel. Passenger safety and door coupling are depending up on it. The huge moving elevator car is moving in this clearance with the stationary lading entrance.

Car rail center line & Entrance center line

In the drawing you can see there is two car rail center line.
1. Horizontal
2. Vertical

both are important lines.

Entrance center line is also shown in the drawing. The importants of this is in some drawing the vertical car center line and the entrance center line( clear opening center line) may not be aligned. There may be an offset between these two. The offset is a very important measurement need to be considered during the installation. In the below drawing you can see the entrance offset explained.

Elevator Companies - Main stream

       

         

                       The elevator or lift business is a competent one now. It all starts when the plots are filled with buildings. Then people started thinking about making multi storied buildings. The importance and necessity of elevator became clearer than ever before. As the buildings grow taller the fortune of the elevator industry also got the green signal which is never red until now. Still now there is nothing else to replace lifts in buildings. As the green signal glowed , investors started to enter the market.
                       
                       Nowadays the lift market came faraway from where it started. Product diversity, product quality, product life, service quality, service quantity, execution and presentation level, all these factors are improved. No need to mention the explosion of turnover and expansion of international business. In terms of technology the improvement is unimaginable. The traveler's safety, comfort.. etc, all are at a level which wouldn't have involved in the dreams of elevator people of history. As the competition is tight in the market the companies are grown in to  socially committed organizations. They are thinking of making their brand more and more respective in society by getting involved in the global problems.This means the areas of technical aspects are almost covered now.
       
                 As we have now reached the era of  technological explosion, the companies leading the front have all the facilities that can be offered in the field.

                 The prices of low and mid - financial sections are very competitive. The higher financial sections are ruled by relation-experience and feedback trios.
       
               The main line companies offers world class product and service.
       
               Once the elevator order confirms, the relation of company with the client starts and it ends until the maintenance contract goes away from the company of some reason. So the selection of the elevator company for a project need to be very care full.
            Also Mr. Job seeker ..... you .. too need to be careful before selecting the company.
           
            Before that keep it in mind that   first of all you have to check , which list of companies will select you as their employ!!!... means your skills and qualifications.
         
             The job seeker need to check the facilities in the company... not what you hear in an interview. But you have to check what's the situation actually is.
         
             Training facilities, payroll, reputation, brand, chance of growth, history, etc.. have to be checked by the job seeker. We will be posting soon regarding
       
            How to select your elevator company as an employer...

            And

            How to select an elevator company as a customer.

Anyways
The main first-class companies in the world are listed below.

Elevator companies.
1. Otis
2. Mitsubishi elevators and escalators
3. Schindler
4. Kone
5. Thyssenkrupp
6. Toshiba
7. Hyundai
8. Hitachi


Cick on the comapnies names to know more
         
           

SITE PREPARATION - elevator job

So first topic is SITE PREPARATION

               Site preparation is basically making the site ready for elevator installation. According to the design and the drawings will be different.

               You can check out the classification section to find out the types of lifts.
               So when the drawing arrives according to the information we send to the design center, we have to check the drawing to the site situation and by having a meeting with customer or customer representative. We have to discuss all the things we required for the installation.  Floor heights needs to be checked, shaft size , pit depth, headroom, machine room and storage space. The shaft preparation is a continues process. All the things under the preparation section need to be covered. In companies there will be dedicated team for this works. They will have procedure to carry out these processes. After the site preparation the site will be handed over to installation team for inspection. In between this according to the site readiness date the material would have ordered for manufacture in the factory and delivery have to take place in the  site.

              The one who has the responsibility of this Site Preparation should document all the meetings and communication with the client. The verbal communication is not valid unless you are recording the calls and discussions. In some countries this is illegal, the paper documentation or mail documentations are to be done. And you can save them online in any cloud services free or paid. this will allow you access to all of these documents anywhere.  You also need to save the site location.

             The first thing you have to get from the site is the Engineers number. This things depends upon what type of site is yours. For a highly coordinated big project you will have dedicated personal or division you have to contact for your preparation purposes. Get all the involved personals number, Email details. Save them.  Now check the drawing and study the drawing. Make sure you have the approved drawing with you. If the site is in construction stage the check the construction of the shaft. If found any difference alert client and the design department at once. get a conclusion and avoid problems in the future. If the site is ready below are the main things you need to check to ensure error-less  project.

1. Floor heights.
2. Shaft dimensions

          You can see the link    SHAFT DIMENSION CHART

3. What shaft is made of?
4. Bracket positions are acceptable?
5. Shaft does not have projections.
6. Shaft is clean and painted?
7. Storage for materials
8. Electrical matters
9. Positioning of controller and other parts
10. Position of electric source.

              Preparation is not a ONE day work. You need to follow up the processes.

Beggininers guide - job in elevator

My dear friends

This is my letter to all of

 Who are beginning in the elevator field
                   wish to begin

         


               If you are a job seeker and you consider elevator industry, you will have so many doubts and expectations. Please feel free to ask them in the comment section so that we could get you the information as a reply or a post according to the query.
             At first we will discuss about the training you must get before any technical posts in elevator field. In Our view you must know each and every steps of elevator businesses. Then only you can co-operate with each section of an elevator company.
             At present we are not at all talking about the factory section of the business. The thing we are going to talk about is


1. Site preparation READ MORE >>
2. Delivery
3. Installation
4. Commissioning
5. Quality checking
6. Tests
7. Handing over
8. Service inspection
9. Maintenance
10. Call backs / Break downs
11. Major break downs

letter  will continue explaining each topic

Stairway Elevators - types of elevators

                         Stairway elevators are generally installed in homes where someone in the family has problems with mobility. This type of domestic elevators simply runs on a rail up and down and existing staircase. They can run either in a straight line or around a curved stairway. Stairway elevators can be constructed both inside and outside the home.

Dumbwaiters Elevators - types of elevators / lifts

                      They are small freight elevators intended to carry objects rather than people , Whenever groceries or laundry need to be sent up and down the stairs without making unnecessary trips that can quickly tire people , people can simply place what needs to be transported in the dumbwaiter and press the button to send it up or down stairs. Dumbwaiters are most often built into or adjacent to a wall. 

A simple dumbwaiter is a movable frame in a shaft, dropped by a rope on a pulley, guided by rails; most dumbwaiters have a shaft, car, and capacity smaller than those of passenger elevators, usually 100 to 1000 lbs