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Am I the only one who misses the old way of leveling elevators by ear? | Elevator Mechanics - The Community Guide

Am I the only one who misses the old way of leveling elevators by ear?

I've been in the trade for over 20 years now, and I still catch myself listening for the thump of the leveling switch instead of trusting the digital controller. Back when I started in the late 90s, I could walk up to a car in a building downtown and tell you exactly which relay was sticking just by the sound it made. Now all these new MRLs have me staring at a little screen trying to figure out why the car's stopping 3/8 of an inch off. Has anyone else found that the new tech removes a lot of the feel from our work?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jana4mo ago

3/8 of an inch off? Honestly that's a mile in the old days. I remember this one Otis in a 12 story office building I could feel a 1/16 inch difference just from the way the car settled. Ngl these new controllers drive me nuts too, I had a TAC 50 last week that kept stopping high and the little screen just said "position error" with no other info. Give me a relay panel any day where you can hear the problem before you even open the machine room door.

richard1104mo ago

That TAC 50 giving you "position error" with nothing else is exactly the problem with everything now. I noticed it with my truck too. Check engine light comes on and the code just says "misfire detected" but doesnt tell you which cylinder. Older vehicles the fuel injection was simpler and you could work through it step by step. Same with my parents furnace. Digital board went bad and the error just said "system fault". Replacement board was 400 bucks and took two weeks to ship. The old stuff with a limit switch and a flame sensor you could fix with a multimeter and some common sense. Everything now hides the real problem behind a generic screen message. It makes you feel like you need a computer science degree to fix anything.