Timestamps:
0:00 intro
0:20 normal ride
2:33 motor room
6:22 car top / lift shaft
This lift is situated in an older office/factory/storage building in the city of Basel, Switzerland. It was installed upon construction of the building in the 1950s. The building has seen several different uses and now houses several offices. There are multiple passenger lifts in the building as well, one of which is fully original, as is the freight lift.
The freight lift presented here has various interesting features. Due to the building layout, it has two door sides arranged diagonally, leading to a diagonal frame structure to support the lift car. The landing panels each have 8 indicator lamps built into them. 5 are used to display the lifts current position, two indicate the current direction of travel while moving and the lowest one is the standard occupied lamp, indicating that the lift is in use.
The floor position indicator is fed from the contacts of the auxiliary wheel of the floor selector. These two addons, the floor position indicator and the car direction indicator, are rather rare finds on old freight lifts nowadays.
The drive system of this lift allows for an interesting insight into the development of 2-speed Schindler lifts over time. The slow speed of this lift is realised by connecting both motors in series. A full trip of the lift works as follows: The contactors for direction engage together with the main contactor for the brake motor and the high-speed contactor. The high-speed contactor bridges the windings of the small speed motor. The brake release motor now spins either left or right, depending on the selected direction of travel. As soon as it reaches its final position, the contacts of the Umschaltapparat UA (switch-over device) engage and supply current to the main motor. The main motor has split rotor windings (this design is called a slip-ring motor), which are fed into the startup resistors in the cage above the gearbox. Pneumatically delayed contacts will slowly short the resistors until the rotor is fully shorted and the motor is now running under full power.
As soon as the floor selector sends the stop signal, the brake motor contactor and the bridging contactor for the slow speed motor deactivate, causing the mechanical brake to slow down the lift. As soon as the centrifugal force switch deactivates, the brake moor main contactor activates again, but without the bridging contactor for the slow motor, so now both motors run in series for levelling. As soon as the lift reaches the final stop switch, all contactors are deenergised and the trip is complete.
Manufacturer: Schindler, 1958
Capacity: 1000 kg
Type: Traction, 2:1 roping
Floors: 5: K2, K1, E, 1, 2
Fixtures: Schindler N-Series
Speed: 0.6 m/s
Travel height: 16.15m
Logic: Schindler Relay
Drive: 2 speed with 2 motors
Motor: Schindler SD 94 b, 7.4 kW + KD 920 c, 1.25kW
Gearbox: W55, reduction 42.5
WARNING/DISCLAIMER: DO NOT attempt to copy anything shown in the video without having the proper knowledge of how to do so! LIFT SHAFTS and MACHINE ROOMS are very DANGEROUS places and are NOT MEANT to be accessed by inexperienced or untrained personnel!
Dangers in these environments include but are not limited to crushing, electrocution, falling and burns.
Recording: multiple visits 2023/2024