I saw an elevator room in Seattle with equipment around that old perhaps 1930's the room was spotless as was all the equipment. Pride in manufacture, design and maintenance equals long life and outstanding reliability
I would have loved to see the elevator room at the Medical-Dental Building in downtown Seattle; they had some old (and FAST!!!) Westinghouse Selectomatics. Those things felt like they were going to launch you into orbit!
Umm, DC is constant, it doesn't hum. Any hum you're hearing is from the AC side. The transformer is there to convert the 480VAC incoming voltage down to 230VAC to feed the equipment. This is standard practice to save costs on copper wiring. 480v will use half the current that a 240v supply would use. The power wires running from the basement all the way to the top floor only have to be 1/2 the size they'd need to feed it with 240v.
You are correct with the AC side of things but the main noise is actually coming from the DC output. The controller is using Pulse Width Modulation to control the power supplied to the motor. The buzz/hum comes from this because the controller is basically turning the power on and off very quickly. By slightly changing how long the power is on vs. how long it is off, the net amount of power that the motor puts out is changed. Even though it is DC does not mean that it is constant.
@FrontRangeRailfan PWM switching frequencies are typically in the kHz range, some stuff these days have switching frequencies into the MHz. Incidentally, some inverters have a parameter that allows you to adjust it over a range. In this case, it was classic 60 cycle hum coming from the step-down transformer.
US Grant Hotel? In San Diego? If so, from 1980 I remember one freight elevator in the back on the left (as looking from the main entrance), and four elevators in a quad arrangement in the middle of the main floor, right in front of the grand staircase to the second floor. The freight elevator was manual. The two main elevators on the left of the quad were also manual, although only one was working (the other had reputedly crashed into the basement a few weeks previously). The two on the right were converted to automatic. I think they were Otis at the time, but I may be misremembering. They both had control problems. The whole hotel was shut down for a major renovation two weeks after I stayed there, I have no doubt the main elevators, and possibly the freight elevator, were all refurbished. They needed refurbishing.
I worked on the Grant after the shutdown. You are absolutely correct about the 4 passenger elevators, it was the left side north elevator that crashed in the basement. My understanding it was overloaded by some of the Navy people staying there while their ship was being overhauled. The two on the right that had been converted to automatic sure had some interesting G forces. I was able to explore the machine room for the passenger elevators and saw a red tag on the equipment for the crashed elevator. I got a ride on the left south elevator with the building engineer. The cab was absolutely beautiful!!! Even better, I took a couple of joyrides in the freight elevator, much to the annoyance of the guy who ran it. I also got a few rides on the sidewalk to basement elevator. The passenger elevators were Westinghouse if I recall correctly. Those machine rooms had to be raised as at least one floor was added to the top of the hotel after it was completed in 1910. Over the decades since, my wife and I have stayed there a few times, to me one of the best parts of those stays was riding those elevators that still felt somewhat the same as they did in 1980. Up until around 1980, a block east of the Grant was Walker Scott. It had a bank of Otis manual elevators with no inner doors. As a kid I loved to ride them. They also had the oldest escalator in San Diego.
I went back and watched the opening of the video in slow motion. I saw the sign for the Hotel St. James out the window, so it's definitely in San Diego. When the Grant was renovated they put in a new freight elevator accessible from the west wing hallway, so this may not be the Grant.
@@Paramount531 A bunch of us were there working on setting up and running a week-long puppetry convention when I was there. I was pretty much all over the lower floors and service basement of the hotel, moving equipment in and out and tracking down problems with the ballroom lighting electricals that nobody at the hotel knew anything about. I remember the manager running the manual elevator, as the long-time elevator boy had been let go a few weeks before. But the manager had barely a clue on how to operate it, and could never hit a floor. He invariably stopped 6 inches or a foot above or below the floor, and you had to climb into or out of the car. This was a real pain if you had a 400 pound rolling road crate of lighting equipment to roll into or out of the car, and you now had to lift it a foot up or down by hand, rather than rolling it on the casters. The back automatic elevator was OOS the day we got there, though it was nominally 'fixed' the next day. I remember the right elevator took like two minutes to answer a call, and the doors would open while it was still matching up to the floor level. Made us a little nervous using it. A couple days later a group of us had gone out for a bite to eat about midnight. We came back and pushed the call button to go up to our rooms. We were standing there in the quad between the elevators talking, in no hurry, being used to the slow call response. I happened to be the only one of us facing the automatic elevators. _Both_ elevators responded to the call. The one on the left had homed to the floor, but seemingly wasn't quite sure of this. The doors would open 6 inches or a foot, then immediately close. Repeatedly. The right elevator doors were fully open, but it was bouncing up and down, about 2 inches above the floor to a couple inches below. I watched this for a while, then nudged the other people to take a look. We watched this performance for about 30 seconds, then as a group resolved to take the stairs to our floor. We never used those elevators again. The freight elevator was run by a nice old lady about 50 years old. She regaled us with tales of running the elevator for the last 30 years, except for about 3 years when she'd gotten married a decade before. She had nothing good to say about the "young girl" that had been hired for those 3 years in her absence. Apparently, she was no better about hitting the floor correctly than the manager was with the manual passenger elevator, and (according to her) was always getting distracted and not doing her job properly. I just kept trying to wrap my head around the idea of spending my entire life, running a manual freight elevator, where every floor looked out at an identical (except for paint color) blank wall 6 feet away on the other side of the hallway. I also recall a bunch of us looking around at some of the service spaces. We discovered that every floor had old disused communal bathrooms at the end of the main hallways. Apparently the rooms had not had attached bathrooms when the hotel was first built. They were added sometime later, and the doors to the bathroom at the end of the hall simply closed and forgotten. Oh, and the bar was a floor down from the main lobby. It was named "Grant's Tomb". But it was closed.
Probably built in USA but Westinghouse had plants outside USA. I worked at one of their Canadian plants in the 1970’s. Three large plants just in Hamilton Ontario that had been there since early 1900’s.
It seems like those old machines really didn't need AC, The modern MCE equipment needs cooling more than the machine, just think 100 years ago there was no AC in that room.
@jreding132 Kind of doubt that, back then, the old machinery used a DC generator, which was an AC motor turning a DC motor to generate DC electricity. As you can imagine, they are very loud and produce a ton of heat. The new controller uses a solid state DC drive, which is much more efficient and generates little heat. Back then, they would've had a very powerful exhaust fan running in this room as everything used to be relays, and those aren't affected by moisture/dust.
With proper use and maintenance without tear and abuse, that equipment was meant to last forever. Just to be clear are you a machine tech or are we just on a ‘tism here, which is quite alright too.
@@twaymouth The AC-to-DC conversion on these will be done by the drive (inside the controller cabinet, in the bottom right - it's missing its cover on this one, but it's an MCE System 12 SCR drive). The transformer is there primarily to provide a phase shift (via mechanisms I don't fully understand...) to enable the use of a 12-pulse drive instead of 6-pulse, which gives smoother/less "spiky" current flow and also causes it to emit the noise mentioned in the video instead of a lower pitched, line frequency buzz. A decent portion of that noise does come from the motor - some does come from the transformer like the video mentioned, but by no means all of it.
@jeffwxyz That is the drive isolator transformer; there's a DC drive with the rectifiers and everything else inside the controller cabinet (which I believe I showed). The actual sound comes from the isolator transformer.
@@QEElevators its going to be more expensive change the 1920 motor and/or the stupid computers controlling it because the heat ends up generating mold on the walls that goes over the euipment eventually. then you need to redo the room and the machinery for the elevator. cheap becomes millionaire expense.
Nothing special. DC Drive is kinda hokey, not a properly packaged design like you would get from Rockwell or Siemens. The motor is kinda cool though. You need to go to the hydroelectric dam at Mechanicville NY. Still has original Tom Edison installed 40 Hz generators.
100 plus year old electric motor working with modern controllers, this is really cool.
@@woobykal68 Those old machines will last much longer with the continuation of proper maintenance. Built like tanks!
@@QEElevators Потому что тогда всё это, проектировали инженеры, а не маркетологи.
I saw an elevator room in Seattle with equipment around that old perhaps 1930's the room was spotless as was all the equipment. Pride in manufacture, design and maintenance equals long life and outstanding reliability
And its not from China? I guess in the 1930's Chinese products weren't used. Besides back then the Chinese were busy fighting the Japanese.
I would have loved to see the elevator room at the Medical-Dental Building in downtown Seattle; they had some old (and FAST!!!) Westinghouse Selectomatics. Those things felt like they were going to launch you into orbit!
As it should be care and maintenance that's the key.
That is amazing that these are old computer rise elevator machine room
What?
I used to do high-rise window cleaning and loved looking at all the elevator and other mechanical gear. Absolutely amazing stuff.
Today I learnt that they had gearless traction elevators in the 1920s. I'm amazed.
I believe that’s a ViewSonic E50c monitor ! The one I got with my very 1st PC back in 2004 ! Such a beautiful thing ! 🥰🥰
@@MrPhantomFury That's awesome! Love seeing old tech like this in elevator machine rooms!
A very beautiful old engine; if you take good care of it, it will work for many more years.
Dude, this is so flipping awesome! 👍
wow amazing
When everything in the world is destroyed and gone, and thousands of years from now, this motor will still be intact and working.
Щетки поминять почистить колектор от нагара смазать и поехали
Super maszyna, warta zachowania dla następnych pokoleń..
Pozdrawiam.
Umm, DC is constant, it doesn't hum. Any hum you're hearing is from the AC side. The transformer is there to convert the 480VAC incoming voltage down to 230VAC to feed the equipment. This is standard practice to save costs on copper wiring. 480v will use half the current that a 240v supply would use. The power wires running from the basement all the way to the top floor only have to be 1/2 the size they'd need to feed it with 240v.
Well said! Do you know why transformers hum? Because they don't know the words!
You are correct with the AC side of things but the main noise is actually coming from the DC output. The controller is using Pulse Width Modulation to control the power supplied to the motor. The buzz/hum comes from this because the controller is basically turning the power on and off very quickly. By slightly changing how long the power is on vs. how long it is off, the net amount of power that the motor puts out is changed. Even though it is DC does not mean that it is constant.
@FrontRangeRailfan PWM switching frequencies are typically in the kHz range, some stuff these days have switching frequencies into the MHz. Incidentally, some inverters have a parameter that allows you to adjust it over a range. In this case, it was classic 60 cycle hum coming from the step-down transformer.
Keep feeding it brushes it will run for another 100 years.
Increíble ver un sistema eléctrico para ascensor, q maravilla ,con tantos años funciona bien gracias x este video 👌
Nice Elevator Bro!
US Grant Hotel? In San Diego?
If so, from 1980 I remember one freight elevator in the back on the left (as looking from the main entrance), and four elevators in a quad arrangement in the middle of the main floor, right in front of the grand staircase to the second floor. The freight elevator was manual.
The two main elevators on the left of the quad were also manual, although only one was working (the other had reputedly crashed into the basement a few weeks previously).
The two on the right were converted to automatic. I think they were Otis at the time, but I may be misremembering. They both had control problems.
The whole hotel was shut down for a major renovation two weeks after I stayed there, I have no doubt the main elevators, and possibly the freight elevator, were all refurbished. They needed refurbishing.
I worked on the Grant after the shutdown. You are absolutely correct about the 4 passenger elevators, it was the left side north elevator that crashed in the basement. My understanding it was overloaded by some of the Navy people staying there while their ship was being overhauled. The two on the right that had been converted to automatic sure had some interesting G forces. I was able to explore the machine room for the passenger elevators and saw a red tag on the equipment for the crashed elevator. I got a ride on the left south elevator with the building engineer. The cab was absolutely beautiful!!! Even better, I took a couple of joyrides in the freight elevator, much to the annoyance of the guy who ran it. I also got a few rides on the sidewalk to basement elevator. The passenger elevators were Westinghouse if I recall correctly. Those machine rooms had to be raised as at least one floor was added to the top of the hotel after it was completed in 1910.
Over the decades since, my wife and I have stayed there a few times, to me one of the best parts of those stays was riding those elevators that still felt somewhat the same as they did in 1980.
Up until around 1980, a block east of the Grant was Walker Scott. It had a bank of Otis manual elevators with no inner doors. As a kid I loved to ride them. They also had the oldest escalator in San Diego.
I went back and watched the opening of the video in slow motion. I saw the sign for the Hotel St. James out the window, so it's definitely in San Diego. When the Grant was renovated they put in a new freight elevator accessible from the west wing hallway, so this may not be the Grant.
@@Paramount531 A bunch of us were there working on setting up and running a week-long puppetry convention when I was there. I was pretty much all over the lower floors and service basement of the hotel, moving equipment in and out and tracking down problems with the ballroom lighting electricals that nobody at the hotel knew anything about.
I remember the manager running the manual elevator, as the long-time elevator boy had been let go a few weeks before. But the manager had barely a clue on how to operate it, and could never hit a floor. He invariably stopped 6 inches or a foot above or below the floor, and you had to climb into or out of the car. This was a real pain if you had a 400 pound rolling road crate of lighting equipment to roll into or out of the car, and you now had to lift it a foot up or down by hand, rather than rolling it on the casters.
The back automatic elevator was OOS the day we got there, though it was nominally 'fixed' the next day. I remember the right elevator took like two minutes to answer a call, and the doors would open while it was still matching up to the floor level. Made us a little nervous using it.
A couple days later a group of us had gone out for a bite to eat about midnight. We came back and pushed the call button to go up to our rooms. We were standing there in the quad between the elevators talking, in no hurry, being used to the slow call response. I happened to be the only one of us facing the automatic elevators.
_Both_ elevators responded to the call. The one on the left had homed to the floor, but seemingly wasn't quite sure of this. The doors would open 6 inches or a foot, then immediately close. Repeatedly. The right elevator doors were fully open, but it was bouncing up and down, about 2 inches above the floor to a couple inches below. I watched this for a while, then nudged the other people to take a look. We watched this performance for about 30 seconds, then as a group resolved to take the stairs to our floor. We never used those elevators again.
The freight elevator was run by a nice old lady about 50 years old. She regaled us with tales of running the elevator for the last 30 years, except for about 3 years when she'd gotten married a decade before. She had nothing good to say about the "young girl" that had been hired for those 3 years in her absence. Apparently, she was no better about hitting the floor correctly than the manager was with the manual passenger elevator, and (according to her) was always getting distracted and not doing her job properly. I just kept trying to wrap my head around the idea of spending my entire life, running a manual freight elevator, where every floor looked out at an identical (except for paint color) blank wall 6 feet away on the other side of the hallway.
I also recall a bunch of us looking around at some of the service spaces. We discovered that every floor had old disused communal bathrooms at the end of the main hallways. Apparently the rooms had not had attached bathrooms when the hotel was first built. They were added sometime later, and the doors to the bathroom at the end of the hall simply closed and forgotten.
Oh, and the bar was a floor down from the main lobby. It was named "Grant's Tomb". But it was closed.
"BALLS TO THE WALL!"
There’s quality right there built in the USA and not China
Probably built in USA but Westinghouse had plants outside USA. I worked at one of their Canadian plants in the 1970’s. Three large plants just in Hamilton Ontario that had been there since early 1900’s.
Top 👍
This looks like straight up like Max Payne game level
What is the voltage of the motor and is it single phase or 3 phase what gauge wires go to motor and what amperage fuse or circuit breaker is it on
Big and heavy equals long life and high reliability in machinery
@SuperPhexx It running at a very low RPM also helps; there is much less wear on components. These old machines are built like tanks!
Good video ❤
How many floors does it run? Awesome, Historic Machine. Thanks for the video.
11 floors. Amazing seeing these machines running on "modern" (90's) controls!
Nothing is as good as back in those days. Nothing. Everything has gone downhill from there.
Nice! How many floors does the motor serve?
Wonder what the monitor and keyboard were used for?
Атмосферная комната. Прямо как в фильмах 1920-х или о 1920-х. Окацца так все и выглядело. 🙃 Окна, стены... краска на стенах.
It seems like those old machines really didn't need AC, The modern MCE equipment needs cooling more than the machine, just think 100 years ago there was no AC in that room.
@jreding132 Kind of doubt that, back then, the old machinery used a DC generator, which was an AC motor turning a DC motor to generate DC electricity. As you can imagine, they are very loud and produce a ton of heat. The new controller uses a solid state DC drive, which is much more efficient and generates little heat. Back then, they would've had a very powerful exhaust fan running in this room as everything used to be relays, and those aren't affected by moisture/dust.
Awsome vid. Look for friedrich window units. About the only new reliable ac's
I always thought the governor spinning was a movie/cartoon gimmick display Item.
I don't know anything about elevator lifts.... I just want to know, is that some kind a DC Motor?
Yes, a brushed DC motor.
With proper use and maintenance without tear and abuse, that equipment was meant to last forever.
Just to be clear are you a machine tech or are we just on a ‘tism here, which is quite alright too.
Where is the DC coming from. There used to be motor generator sets to provide the DC.
A solid state rectifier type converter called a DC Drive. This one uses a MCE System 12 DC Drive. It also controls the speed at the same time.
Many layers of gray paint on that motor I see ;)
Did you just say that the DC comes from the transformer? It is nice to see old equipment like that running.
The transformer its self will be AC (because physics) and the DC will be produced by a rectifier pack after the transformer.
@@twaymouth The AC-to-DC conversion on these will be done by the drive (inside the controller cabinet, in the bottom right - it's missing its cover on this one, but it's an MCE System 12 SCR drive). The transformer is there primarily to provide a phase shift (via mechanisms I don't fully understand...) to enable the use of a 12-pulse drive instead of 6-pulse, which gives smoother/less "spiky" current flow and also causes it to emit the noise mentioned in the video instead of a lower pitched, line frequency buzz. A decent portion of that noise does come from the motor - some does come from the transformer like the video mentioned, but by no means all of it.
@jeffwxyz That is the drive isolator transformer; there's a DC drive with the rectifiers and everything else inside the controller cabinet (which I believe I showed). The actual sound comes from the isolator transformer.
in china thats also the maintenance mans room
Уверен, данный электропривод проработает не один год. Очень надёжная, но, к сожалению, энергозатратная система.
why dont they put a modern air conditioner? put it to max cold 24/7 to cool all that equiptment and reduce moisture in the air.
Because they don’t need to, that RAC is good enough 😊
@@steveosshenanigans in the video they guy says that the window AC barely does any difference.
Cheap management I'm guessing🤣
Not for motors like this, it's wayy underpowered. Lot of heat coming from this equipment.
@@QEElevators its going to be more expensive change the 1920 motor and/or the stupid computers controlling it because the heat ends up generating mold on the walls that goes over the euipment eventually. then you need to redo the room and the machinery for the elevator. cheap becomes millionaire expense.
silent, relatively low maintainance, what more?
Nothing special. DC Drive is kinda hokey, not a properly packaged design like you would get from Rockwell or Siemens. The motor is kinda cool though.
You need to go to the hydroelectric dam at Mechanicville NY. Still has original Tom Edison installed 40 Hz generators.