I found them!

OMG this project is awsome. It is state of the art. To have a rough idea how many hours did you spend working on it. Its fanatastic.

That's what I was looking for

 

Pretty cool. Do you have the details of parts used, and a schematic, of course.

Yes please

 

The elevator we constructed was utilized as a marketing tool for our company. There were two of us that designed and built it. The idea was to turn the elevator on which also turned the light on. You would then present phase one (first floor) of our services to the clients in fifteen seconds. If you look closely at the hoistway you can see the presentation. After fifteen seconds the light would go out. The elevator would move up a floor and the light would come back on. You would then give a fifteen second presentation on phase two of our services. This continued until it reached the top floor. It would then reset to floor one. It was an awesome exhibit. We had so many people at one trade show just standing there watching.

The rails for the car are contained in the hoistway close to the back of the elevator. The rails served two purposes. One was to let the car travel up and down. The second was to allow us to screw the back wall (white Plexiglas) to the hoistway. The counterweight rails were placed on the back wall. We used some kind of T bar or something. It has been too long.

The car had four rollers that were at the back. It had two on the top and two on the bottom. They were spring steel rollers from a screen door. The spring steel held the car in the rails by pressure.

We utilized two sheaves for the elevator. One was placed on the direct drive DC motor and the other one was used as a deflector sheave directly over the counterweights. The sheaves are actually wheels off a model car. The motor came from the hobby shop and I wished we had actually used a worm gear configuration instead of the direct drive. It would have looked more realistic in the MR since low rise traction elevators use a worm gear machine.

We used an Allen Bradley PLC to control the elevator. I’m not sure where we picked it up. I probably got it from a friend of a friend back in Huntsville.

The elevator has not been in service for six or seven years. It is packed away in the basement however just talking about it is making me want to get it out and crank it back in time for Christmas. If I do get it out I will take some pictures or make a video and post them.

As I told you before thanks very much for your help. This elevator project is fantastic. Any other pics, vids or any other info will be more than appreciated and I am very looking forward to that.

Thanks for helping my out. You gave me a very good idea of what my requirements are. Thanks

Amy

 

Amy

Sorry for the delay but time has been short as of late.

I was able to do some simple illustrations for you. The attached merely begin to show the relation between counter weight, passenger car and cable system but does not show any support mechanisms. Also the attached only show one possible example of cable and pulley setup, every manufacturer would, almost always, have their own cable and reeving system. (Reeving is "how" the cable is strung through the pullies. To get a better undestanding of "reeving", Google reeving and or elevator or hoist cabling.)

What you really need to undestand (mechanically) is that an elevator is a "balanced" system". Balanced in that, gravity does the majority of the work for you. The passenger car and the counter weight are constructed such that they weight pretty much the same, almost to the ounce in some cases. Gravity pulls equally on both sides of the system so the motor load is minimum. The motor load only has to overcome the mechanical and frictional loses plus the maximum load of the passenger car (not the weight of the entire system).

Hope this is of use
williamj

 

OMG - The illustrations are fantastic.

Thanks very much for your help William. I you've just solved me a big problem. The pulley problem. I think I have a clear idea now.

Thanks
xxxxxxx

 

Hi Guys. I have a small problem. I wish to limit this project with weight. I don't know how I am going to measure the weight. I was thinking to use sensors.

Any ideas please?

Thanks
Amy

 

Load cell between the cage and the lower pulley?

Ken

 

I was thinking to do the load cell under the car. How about that?

Thanks very much for your help boys

 

A load cell has to be between the weighed object and a fixed reference point, so it's either stretched or compressed. Think of standing on a bathroom scale. If the load cell were under the car what would be the reference point? If it were between the car's bottom and the car's floor, the floor would have to be floating on one or more load cells, like the bathroom scale. Having the load cell at the lift cable-to-car attachment point would be easier.

Ken