The Community Guide

c/elevator-mechanics

0

leo_lopez•27d ago

That rope grab on the 18th floor had me questioning my whole morning

I clipped my lanyard to what I thought was a solid rail tie on a hydro in Minneapolis, and the whole bracket just spun loose, about 3 seconds before I put weight on it. Guess I learned to always spin-check the anchor nut before trusting it, anyone else had a close call with pre-torqued hardware that wasn't?

21

jade_hunt48•28d ago

I used to hate door hanger inspections, now I get it

For like 5 years I thought those mandatory door hanger checks were just paperwork theater. Then last month we had a 22 story job in Austin where the controller kept throwing a random fault, no rhyme or reason. I finally sat down with the hanger logs from the last 6 months and found a pattern, one door had a slightly loose roller that only acted up in afternoon heat. Fixed that roller and the fault shut off completely. Now I actually read those logs first thing, has anyone else found a hidden gremlin hiding in their inspection records?

21

tessa_rivera•28d ago

Door limit switch gremlin took me two shifts to find

Had a car that kept losing leveling on the third stop, drove me nuts for 6 hours until I realized the door limit switch arm was flexing a hair at certain car loads. Check the door position transducer before you start swapping relays, my dumb replaced one for nothing. Anyone else chase a phantom fault that turned out to be mechanical wear not electrical?

13

uma_mitchell83•29d ago

Coated cables vs bare cables, I picked coated and it bit me

About 8 months ago I had to choose what to run in an old freight elevator downtown, coated lift cables or the bare steel ones. The rep made coated sound like the smart move, less stretch, less rust, so I went with it. Big mistake when the traction sheave started polishing them slick after a few weeks, we got slip on a loaded car and it slammed the buffer. I swapped back to bare cables last month and the grab is night and day, no more glazing. Sure, I clean the rails and grease more often, but I dont lose sleep over a car dropping. Anyone else had coated cables go smooth on them, or was my problem just a bad sheave angle?

28

terryrobinson•29d ago

That $450 brake tester I bought paid for itself in one week

I run a small repair outfit and kept getting complaints about soft stops on modern elevators. I dropped $450 on a portable brake tester after a close call with a car that drifted 8 inches past the landing. Ran it on three jobs last week, found two brakes with worn linings that looked fine by eye. The other mechanics thought I was wasting money, but it caught issues before any passenger did. Anyone else using one of these, or do you just trust the annual load test?

6

drew_thomas9•1mo ago

Hit 10,000 starts without a major recall, then got one in one week

I logged my 10,000th elevator start on a MRL unit downtown and thought my maintenance records were bulletproof. Seven days later the same model threw a door lock fault that shut down a 14-story building for 3 hours. That number made me realize how easy it is to get complacent, anyone else track their start counts and still get blindsided?

13

charliew99•1mo ago

Just realized my gauge readings were lying to me for 6 months

I used to trust my digital manometer blindly during load testing. Then last Tuesday I ran a routine check on a 3-year-old traction unit in a 12-floor office building in Austin and the numbers looked perfect, but the car was moving like a washing machine on spin cycle. I swapped in a spare analog gauge from my truck and the pressure difference was almost 40 psi off from what the digital unit said. Turns out the digital one had a bad transducer, and it had been drifting slowly for months without me catching it. Now I cross-check with the analog every time I set safety brakes or do a full load test. Anyone else ever had a digital tool fail so gradually you didn't notice until something else acted weird?

28

angela_kelly•1mo ago

Finally figured out why my car brake kept dragging after 8 years in the trade

Turns out I was torquing the caliper bracket bolts to the dry spec instead of lubing the threads first, and it was binding the slide pins just enough to cause a slow drag. A supervisor at our shop in Phoenix caught it while I was complaining about pads wearing uneven on the front left, measured the bolt stretch and showed me the difference in 10 minutes. Anyone else had a torque spec bite them like that?

11

parker543•1mo ago

Swapped my ropedrives for MRL gearless after 11 years, still adjusting my ear

Been doing traction elevators since 2009, all ropedrive with worm gears. I could tell a bad bearing by the hum, knew exactly when a motor was dragging before the oil temp even moved. Last March I took a job with a company that only installs MRL gearless units. Took me a solid three calls to stop waiting for that gear sound that never comes. The new drives are so quiet you basically work blind, you have to trust the controller readouts instead of your gut. Had a 10 story hotel unit running rough last week, I kept listening for the old grind pattern and kept missing it. Finally hooked up my analyzer and saw the rotor angle was off by 2 degrees. That was the fix. So now I carry my laptop on every stop instead of just my stethoscope. Anyone else switch over and lose their hearing-based troubleshooting mojo, or am I the only dinosaur left?

0

hart.taylor•1mo ago

Rotor brake spring snapped on a 2006 Otis in Dayton, what a mess

Last Tuesday I was doing a routine check on a 2006 Otis in a 12 story office building and the spring on the rotor brake let go mid-run, dropping the car about 18 inches before the safeties caught it, so I had to pull the whole brake assembly and replace both springs and the coil, has anyone else seen these fail without any prior noise?

20

davis.emma•1mo ago

Overheard a younger tech say hydraulics are dead, that got me thinking

I was swapping a blown packing in a 4 inch cylinder down in Charlotte last week when this kid about 25 says to his partner, why even bother, all these are going away soon. I didn't say anything, but it stuck with me. We got almost 30 year old units still running fine, and I don't see every building owner dropping 80 grand for a machine room upgrade. The older I get, the more I realize the simple stuff, valves, seals, pressure switches, outlasts all the fancy new tech. Anyone else still doing more hydro work than traction these days, or is it just my neck of the woods?

18

nancy929•1mo ago

Door close button bypasses are getting out of hand

I inspected a 12 unit building downtown last Tuesday and found three elevators where the door close button was jumpered at the controller. Some handyman probably thought he was speeding things up, but now the doors close with zero warning and it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. It took me 20 minutes extra to trace each one because none of them left a note. Have you guys been seeing more of this lately on older setups, and do you charge extra for documenting the bypasses?

18

joseph_baker•1mo ago

Am I the only one who picked a hydraulic over a traction for a 4-stop job?

I had to decide between a MRL traction and a holeless hydraulic for a low rise building downtown, and I went with the hydraulic because of the machine room space. It's been 6 months now and the ride is smooth but the oil temperature swings are driving me nuts... anyone else run into that issue?

22

max472•1mo ago

Rant: Picked the wrong door closer on a 30-floor job

Had to choose between a Norton 1600 and a LCN 4040 for a high-traffic office tower in Chicago. Went with the Norton cause it was cheaper. Three months later I'm back replacing half of them. The LCN holds up way better under constant use. Anyone else get burned by cheaping out on door hardware?

26

aaronrobinson•1mo ago

Unpopular opinion: I think older relay logic runs better than these new boards

I swapped a 1992 Dover panel for a brand new microprocessor controller last month on a job in Cleveland and the car has had two shutdowns already from phantom faults... That old relay system never gave us a single false trip in 15 years. Anyone else feel like the new stuff adds more headaches than it fixes?

26

finleyfox•1mo ago

Threw $300 down the drain on a controller board swap

Bought a refurbished controller board for a 10-year-old Otis lift and spent 6 hours wiring it up only to find out it was programmed for a different model. Anyone else get burned by parts that claim to be universal but aren't?

10

mitchell.mark•1mo ago

Dropped $600 on a laser alignment tool and it paid for itself in one job

I fought with those old dial indicator setups for years on traction elevators. Always second guessing myself, rechecking every measurement twice. Last month I finally bit the bullet and bought a laser alignment kit from a tool rep that came through the shop. Cost me about 600 bucks, which hurt at the time. First big job with it was a 12-stop gearless machine in a downtown building where the rails were way off. Would have taken me half a day with dials, but I had everything dialed in within two hours. The building super even commented on how quiet the car was after the adjustment. Has anyone else switched to laser alignment and seen a big jump in accuracy?

23

david123•1mo ago

Lube job gone wrong on a MRL elevator last Tuesday

I was doing routine guide rail lubrication on a Schindler 3300 machine room-less setup over at the St. Mary's hospital annex and the oiler nozzle slipped off the rail. Now there's a thin film of oil all over the governor rope and I'm worried about it losing traction. Has anyone dealt with cleaning oil off a steel governor cable without having to replace the whole thing?

5

keith943•1mo ago

Chat with a building super downtown made me rethink my whole approach to levelling

He said he spends more time on the rails and guides than the machine room, and that got me thinking about how I always rush the track work. For a 20-year-old Otis, why wouldn't the floor stops be the first thing I check before touching the controller?

9

fiona_fox56•1mo ago

A simple door adjustment took me 6 hours yesterday

Thought it was a quick sensor alignment. Turned out the track was bent by like 3 millimeters from a freight hit last month.

0

clairebaker•1mo ago

Can we talk about using a laser level for guide rail alignment?

Honestly I spent years doing guide rails with a string line and a plumb bob. But last week I borrowed my buddy's green laser level and it was a total game changer for a 4-stop job downtown. Got the rails aligned in about half the time with way less squinting and arguing with the plumb line. Ngl the laser was a pain to set up on the landing but once it was locked in I could see the whole shaft at once. Has anyone else switched to laser for rail work or am I late to the party?

6

grant901•1mo ago

Just realized most guys are greasing rail guides way too heavy

I was sent to a job last week where another company had done a full modernization about 8 months ago. The car was jerking on every floor landing and the customer was getting complaints. I opened the governor and safeties and found the rails caked with so much grease it was dripping down onto the car top. The mechanic before me must have pumped half a tube per guide. I did a proper clean and used just a light film on the gibs and it's running smooth as glass now. Has anyone else run into this where too much grease actually causes more problems than it solves?

7

matthewgonzalez•1mo ago

Cycled a faulty relay board 40 times before it finally burned out

Had this old Otis board that kept spitting out random door zone errors, so I swapped in a spare while I waited for the new one. Turns out the issue was a hairline crack in the relay socket all along, not the board itself. Anyone else spent way too long chasing a ghost like that?

7

wren_brown•1mo ago

Cable drag on a 12-floor MRL in Chicago got way worse after a lube swap

I work on this MRL in a building off Michigan Ave. We swapped the rail lube from a standard oil to a dry film about 4 months ago. Over the last 2 months the car started getting this weird hesitation around the 8th floor. Tracked it down to the traveling cable dragging on the counterweight because the dry film made the rail sheaves grab differently. Switched back last week and the hesitation is gone. Has anyone else seen a lube change mess with cable behavior like that?

30

hugo_moore•1mo ago

Found a trick for fixing sticky caroma elevator buttons without replacing the whole panel

Was up at a 12 story building in Denver last week and the buttons on the 3rd floor car were sticking like crazy. Tried the usual canned air and contact cleaner but no luck. A buddy from the local union hall told me to try a tiny bit of silicone grease on the plunger stem, not the contact side. Figured what the hell... worked like a charm. 3 floors done in 45 minutes instead of pulling the whole panel. Has anyone else used lube on those caroma stems or is this a hack that'll bite me later?

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