The IMPOSSIBLE garaging that actually exists!
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- The way this chairlift stores away its vehicles should be twice impossible! First, because it is missing a building to store them into, and second, because the way conventional chairlifts are built would not allow the garaging procedure this chairlift performs on a daily basis. In this video, I'll show you how those two impossible missions were accomplished after all with some witty and beautiful engineering!
The footage was actually taken for another video. However, when I saw the garaging procedure of this chairlift, I just had to do a quick video about it and could not wait! So here's a spontaneous, unscheduled video compiled from the footage of the chairlift comparison at Lauchernalp. The other video will be published as well of course, at a later time.
The featured ropeway is the Stafel 6er Sesselbahn at Lauchernalp, built in 2017 by Bartholet. Details: www.skiresort.ch/skigebiet/la...
00:00 Intro
00:45 Getting you up to speed with the ropeway basics essential for this video
02:12 Mission impossible 1
05:12 Mission impossible 2
08:26 The incredibly perfect choreography of the impossible garaging procedure
11:19 Acknowledgements and outlook - Věda a technologie
This is beyond interesting. I'd call it fascinating. As an engineering student and skier, ropeways have always fascinated me. Getting such a detailed explanation is awesome!
When a 17th Swiss generation watch maker decides to build gondolas instead. As an American who lived in CH for several years, the engineering marvels jammed into that tiny country are simply brilliant.
this is really interesting. first i though that each wheel would be individually controlled but having them in sections and staging the chairs into each section makes so much sense :D great video again :D
That's really cool! The amount of speed matching and timing required to do this with any amount of accuracy is impressive
This is very interesting, I have always wondered, how the garaging process in the stations works.
Some Funitel ropeways (I know this from the Silvrettabahn in Ischgl) also accelerate each gondola individually. It sounds really interesting, with the Motors constantly accelerating and decelerating
I woundered why those lift had a fairly big building attached to them that was typically larger than the lift it self.
Kalsan, I love your videos! I’ve always been fascinated by ropeways but there’s not that much in depth content about it like you do! Thanks!
Another excellent video!
I used to program and operate systems that worked in very similar ways, though at a much smaller scale, and I love how they used a few speed sensors and inductive proximity sensors and a lot of brain power to set this system up!
The way they stack them close on the last section, and then backfill from there is genius, and I assume that what you mentioned about the rope speeding up and slowing down was when they were filling the very last set of tires? Going fast to get the next chair in, and then slowing down as it transfered into the independent tires?
And I assume that to unload, they just run the rope slowly and the last independent section jogs periodically to inject a car onto the exit tires and the rope?
Anyway, yes, I DO understand how much work it takes to get and keep all the sensors properly adjusted, and the settings correct in the PLC! I used to do it to a few mm precision on even more complex machines, but not nearly as cool as this! Lol
If I could make one request, people like me want to see brand and model, especially on things like the PLC controls.
I couldn't read any names on the stuff in the wiring cabinet, though I am only on a phone, and it looked like just the i/o modules in there anyway, not the actual PLC computer, but if you were able to include close ups that make brands and models readable when you can see them, or even manufacturers logos, it just makes us Industrial Automation nerds happy!
Hi Ben! You probably understand this system much better than I do. So to answer your question, I have to rely on what I observed. Those motors likely use PWM as you can bearly hear them ramping up or down, and there are so many of them in this symphony! So hope I sensed it right when I say that the main motor was rotating quickly in the beginning of the process, and gradually slowed down as the sections filled up. In the end, it ramped down every time a chair entered the station and reached its slowest speed at the moment of the handover to the first independent section. I guess that's also to keep the acceleration of the already parked chairs reasonnably low every time they are pushed forward to fit another. After the handover, the motor slightly ramped up again until the next chair was within reach. So yes, my observations agree with the process you are describing.
I've never seen the un-garaging IRL, but that seems to be the only doable way to me. Also, from the way it is built, it would seem logical to do it this way.
I'm alway trying to find a balance between making the nerds happy and not completely overwhelming the casual viewer. Since the video coming up is gonna be waaaay too detailled for the latter, I might as well try to find a shot with the brands visible. I'll see if I got a few close-ups in the footage!
Bit late to the party, but at 7:38 you see a big label PLC 🙂. The PLC and IO-Racks seem to be Pilz PSS u2 Line. On the row above the PLC you can also see, what seems to be Media Converters from standard Ethernet to Fiber Optic cables. My guess is that they need to use fiber optics to connect to the other end of the lift. Copper cables are pretty limited in range (about 70m), so they use fiber optic (up to 5km).
Also when he shows the other cabinets, you also see clear labels (PLC and IO-Rack). As for the motors, they seem to be standard industrial motors (I guess Synchronous, because there is finer control possible than on asynchronous Motors) with an encoder attached to the back. There is probably a rack of servocontrollers in the cabinet. I don't think Motors of that size are controlled by PWM. Usually the servo controller get's a setpoint by the PLC (Position or Speed), get's the exact actual values from the encoder and fine controls the current in the three phases to position the Motors exactly.
Also it seems to me, that the system is controlled by two redundant PLC's. That's usually a standard in those type of installations . One actually controlling the system, the other in standby in case the first one goes offline (Power loss, component failure etc)
so much more efficient that the way all the lifts here in the US garage their chairs if at all, love the videos!
The clarity and explanations in your videos are just stunning! Love this sort of content!
I guess that you could even achieve this with an entirely mechanical system.
The first feature you need is some kind of clutch that disconnects the wheels on the cable end of the accelerator/decelerator lanes from the cable.
Then that would allow you to run the cable (with the garaged gondolas under the wheels disconnected from the cable) until a gondola is at the very start of the wheels, where you (almost) stop the cable; then you connect the wheels, run the cable one meter forwards, and disconnect the wheels again.
The problem with only using this first feature is that the distance between the gondolas would be uneven, because the speed change along the accelerator/decelerator lanes would still exist. Under the decelerator wheels the gondolas would be pushed together (which isn't a huge problem; as long as the wheels can slip on top of the gondola's attachments this would "only" cause excessive amounts of wear on the tires). But on the accelerator section, the gondola which is on the slow end would always spin the belts, even if the tires are disconnected from the cable, and the gondolas at the faster end would always go faster than the ones at the slow end, which creates growing gaps.
The second required change would be to not connect the tires directly with a belt (neither one that that decreases in speed over the length of the accelerator nor one that synchronizes the tires in sections). Instead each tire would need to be connected to the output of its own differential. One input of the differential would come from a belt that gradually decreases in speed over the length of the accelerator/decelerator lane. And the other input comes from a belt that synchronizes the speed of the whole lane. In normal operation, the belt that decreases in speed is connected to the cable, and the system thus operates just like a classical station. But for garaging, that belt gets disconnected from the cable and stopped, so that the synchronized-speed belt can move the stack of gondolas as a single unit.
In order to not be forced to use entirely manual speed control for the cable while garaging, you'd probably want a system that quickly advances the cable by 90% of the expected distance between gondolas, and then creeps the remaining 10% until the gondola finally reaches the front of the station where it can be picked up by a sensor.
So yeah, this garaging method _could_ have exited decades ago - at the cost of between 50 and 100 separate differentials.
I'm so glad I found your channel, every single video is a new wonder! Keep up, this is awesome!
Pneumatic clutch systems do exit, stopping a set of wheels for every gondalo in its parked position. I have seen this multiple times on poma and leitner lifts!
Resulting in a way more efficient and simple mechanism
this channel is criminally underrated, keep up the awesome work man!
When I saw the title I thought we'd have a video about those under ground auto garages that automatically take the car and pack it in some type of rack. Maybe next year!
A very clear and thorough explanation. Makes me want to get a job maintaining such a system. Thank you for the video.
Great descriptions, thanks for sharing!
Very happy to have found your channel. Thank you for the interesting videos.
Fascinating video! Great work!
This is a fascinating system, and the explanation is clear and very well done - thank you for sharing!
Love the series on lifts and gondolas! Keep it up!
Genuinely fascinating, thank you!
Thank you so much. I really enjoy your vids about this fascinating technology on the lifts. Going next week to zillertal. Will definitely have a eye on the lifts there. 👍
These videos are the best! Thanks!
Was n geiles System! Als Mechatroniker geht einem das Herz auf
That's so cool. In Haifa they've just opened a cablecar, and I think that they pretty much use much of the technology down here. It was fascinating to see, so thank you.
One ski resort that I have ridden for years (and worked at for a bit) US, West coast, had until recently a rather old Doppelmayr gondola system and while carry around belt was mechanically linked it did have an active spacing system in that there was a single tire on the departure side that was electrically driven and it would hold the gondola there until it was ready for launch and would then push it into the main tire acceleration line.
Awesome video, thanks 🙌👍😊👌🙏🍀
As a skiing and engineering enthusiast I commend these videos. You execute them well and they are informative. Some questions that always rise to my mind when being sped along these things - and therefore possibly suggestions for future editions - are things like: What factors do the ropeway engineers take into consideration when designing and implementing a ropeway? What are the design limits which impose themselves? What compromises are therefore necessary? How is pylon positioning and type determined? These are 'big' questions I'm sure, and answers will be based on decades of research and experience but I feel it would be a fascinating insight to hear something of the approach taken, the thinking and decisions behind it, any compromises that had to be made, any unexpected challenges etc...
It also depends on the constructor, for example Garaventa lifts with this type of station garaging lift the tyres in the station
Great video!!!
Detachable chairlifts and gondolas with sidings have been around since before the 1950's.
good job on the video
Especially liked the animations
tolles video!
I'm a big fan of your videos.
Basically each tire rotates independently, so the station has full control of where the chairs go and stop. This can be explained in one minute.
So basically you didn't watch the video
Two other amazing ropeways you might want to check out are the Moosfluh Gletscherbahn in Riederalp VS switzerland, which is a so called "kombi-Bahn" as it is composed from both gondolas and chairlifts, and the Eiger express a 3s cable car in Grindelwald also switzerland.
Love both of them!
Zermatt has one of each, check out my compilation in the same playlist
Very nice
The grouping of tires and driving by separate motors introduces a lot of mechanical inefficiency. Those acceleration and deceleration phases are required for every chair all day, but only really have an advantage for the single garaging function.
A potentially more efficient way would be to use a conventional set of belt driven slow section tires powered off the main rope but on every tire have an electromechanical clutch. Garaging in the slow section would be as simple as pulling the clutch on each wheel to stop the drive. While not trivial to program, probably possible even with a low end PLC.
I was wondering the same thing. But appearently the inefficiency is not large compared to the overall energy consumption to run a ski domain. Imagine the power that the main motor alone consumes. And imagine running snow machines producing artificial snow for the pists. So it's probably more economical to just solve the problem with motors.
A different manifacturer might have solved the problem with more clutches / Beros. However those might be expensive to fit onto every single tyre.
@@sandro-here you make a good point and there is always a choice to be made between hours spent designing for efficiently and running cost of a simpler design.
After I made the first comment I wondered on the control gear implementation: it's possible they run a common high voltage DC bus and generate back into the bus when slowing the chairs down, then use the energy in the bus to accelerate the chairs the other side.
We pay quite high prices for lift tickets in Switzerland, so I doubt they really worry about electricity costs.
This system does exit !
Every other tyre has a pneumatic clutch, when then gondola reaches its "parked position" the 2 wheels are stopped
I have sean this system on leitner and poma lifts
Amazing, can you share a link?
@@sandro-here czcams.com/video/5Avfg3E1eIM/video.html
Awesome as it is, if you talk about precision choreography, you must look the motor controller, how ir ramps current on each passing coil, that's precision on other level. Then you can look for a stepper motor controller, with a thousand ramps for each turn,turning hundreds of rpm.
Then, you realize how much an electronic controller can handle.
Very interesting video! Thank you so much!
In the meantime I wonder how the unloading works. Do you have some footage of it?
Unfortunately I don't - I'm too lazy to get up at 5 or 6 AM to be there in time ;-) but I doubt it'd be more spectacular than the garaging.
It's the same system. So the first section slowly moves the first gondola onto the rope section and then stops as the first gondola gets accelerated. As soon as the targeted distance is reached the last section moves again to get the next gondola onto the rope and then waits again for the right distance.
Here I found a video about it:
czcams.com/video/5GwJJwlTST0/video.html
Alpine Engineering: Ramcharger 8 Continues a History of Chairlift Innovation. Big Sky Resort’s Ramcharger 8 is the first eight-seat chairlift in North America and one of the most technologically advanced chairlifts in the world. With a history of innovation in the ski industry that includes introducing the world’s first triple and quad chairlifts as well as the first high-speed six-person chairlift, the resort made headlines once again in 2018 when it introduced Ramcharger 8, an eight-seat chairlift that sets a new standard for lift technology. Boyne Resorts partnered with the Doppelmayr shop in Wolfurt, Austria, to bring the advanced lift to Big Sky. Safety is a key consideration in all aspects of the lift’s design. In 1999, Doppelmayr launched a fail-safe system that monitors the position of the haul rope directly on the sheave assemblies and recognizes any deviation of the rope from the sheave groove at an early stage, thus significantly reducing the risk of deropement. Guests also benefit from ergonomically shaped, extra-wide heated seats; weather-proof bubbles in Big Sky’s signature blue color; and wide footrests ideally suited for skiers and snowboarders. All 65 chairs feature the new Ramcharger 8 logo and different printed designs on the chairbacks, creating visual interest and distinctive styling for the installation’s overall look. Mesh banners on the back of the chairs provide optimal advertising space, as they can be custom printed and easily replaced in line with promotional needs and the season. A particular eye-catcher at the bottom station is a huge high-definition video screen, providing Big Sky’s guests with the latest information on trails and weather conditions. The lift is easy to load, starting with the load gates, progressing onto the conveyor carpet and finishing at a load table that can be raised or lowered at the touch of a button. These features combine to help ensure a smooth, safe loading process that greatly reduces the likelihood of misloads. In addition to a manual option, the D-Line chair offers two other operating systems for the restraining bar: lock or autolock. Lock means that the bar is automatically locked after manual closure by the passengers and automatically released, then opened in the arrival station. In the case of autoblock, the restraining bar closes and locks automatically. This operation also is monitored to ensure the restraining bar is closed when the carrier leaves the station. Here again, the restraining bar is automatically released and opened at the other end. Another practical feature of the new installation is the chair parking facility, which is fully automated. Which Can Be Programed To Auto Dispatch Chairs On A Set Time Each Morning & As Well As Closing & Parking Each giant 8 pack chair nightly in heated garage. >>>>>>>>>czcams.com/video/qAiycQQ0e3A/video.html
crazy how complex it is
1:00 well in the US Ropes and Cables are very different things. We have wire ropes, a wire rope is over 3/8'th of an inch in diameter so this would be a wire rope. Everyone calls them cables because americans naturally think of rope when we here the word rope.
As a person that works on large conveyor systems I sure wish that guy would quit sticking his fingers right next to those spinning pulleys to point at them.
Is there also garaging at the top station or do all the chairs fit under the bottom station?
All the seats fit under the bottom station.
a six seat expresslift at gaustadblikk, Norway can also do this:)
This is fascinating! How do they reattach the chairs the next morning, now that all the chairs are in the accelerating portion of the station?
Same as storing them: the smaller motors hand the chairs over to the coupling point one by one.
This whole system is pretty cool.
I think this could be adapted to the MultiFunction Elevators that also can move horizontally. The system that does exist already for that is incredibly expensive; while this would be expensive too I think an adaption of this design would be a cheaper method to move Elevator Cars horizontally in a building. There would still be no reason to change the method for switching elevators from vertical to horizontal movement; that design passed safety regulations for elevators already which is super hard. Or this could be partially adapted with the purely electrical MultiFunction Vertical/Horizontal Elevators. Each Chair Lift for this design would be rated for three Humans; since forbidding people over 300 pounds can be a PR Nightmare...this should be specced for 1000 pounds/chair as my guess = already half of Elevator Rating. So this would not have a need to make a more heavy duty version to be useful for horizontal movement in a building...just change the passenger section to a two seat bubble + fancy details as desired by customer.
6 Seats = at least 1 ton rating...300 pounds times 6 = Elevator Rating already.
its amazing that you would have no idea from just riding it
Is it possible to get information how they are measuring the clamp force of the detachable grip?
Unfortunately, I don't know an engineer that could answer that question.
@@sandro-here And what about the operator?
@@peterkovalcik5484 He knows how to use the device, not how it's built. There is more grip pressure sensor and controller footage in my three videos about the chairlift comparison.
I don't think this is necessarily pushing the PLCs to their limit. I think this is pretty common practice for high speed manufacturing. Lots of speed control for buffering/ accumulation. Pretty common for that industry maybe just new for this industry
I'ld bet this could be archived as well mechanicaly ...
"to make sure the ride remains boring"😆😆
Where I ski they flip the cushion on the chair at night they don’t store them
I was hoping they would just lift or clutch all the tires.
Dont they have a system exactly like this on Feldberg in Germany? It looks a lot like it
Why this when you can have shafts that can connect and disconnect from each tire
3:59 This looks safe. I guess...
Can you do a video of a Von Roll VR 101? Unlike anything you have ever seen..
Gonna be very hard! When I looked up the model you suggested, I saw that Kandersteg-Oeschinen used to have one until 2008. I think I even rode it when I was a little child. However, Switzerland is a bad place to look for ancient ropeways, they're pretty much all decommisionned... let me know if you learn about one being in Switzerland, I might be able to check it out!
I did the research, they're all gone! The last was dismantled in 2013: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesselbahn_Oberdorf%E2%80%93Weissenstein
@@sandro-here there is 1 VR 101 side chair left outside of Switzerland in the Chekz Republic. Been going strong since 1952. Here in the USA. We have 10 Von Roll VR 101s. Most are over 50 years old and going strong. .
Here is a few to look up.
Cedar Point Skyride 1962 Von Roll VR 101
Sea World San Diego skyride 1967 Von Roll VR 101.
Skyfari San Diego Zoo 1969 Von Roll VR 101.
Shows the quality and longevity of the Von Roll lifts
San Diego Zoo Skyfari
I too love ropeways, especially detachable ones. Dopplemayr has truly reinvented this technology which is far older than many think. Tom Scott did a video on one in the UK that it over 100 years old, has a turn section, and doesn't have a motor czcams.com/video/6RiYXI1Tfu4/video.html
Yes, watched that video twice and love it!
Improving your video title game, I see.
Saying "pushing controllers to their capacity" sounds weird, a very CZcams way to describe things. A smartphone performs many more operations per second than the computer controlling this chair lift. The chip and motor drivers are just specced to the computational load that's needed. If there was more to compute they would just install larger versions.
And I can't help thinking that this garaging could be achieved in a much simpler mechanical way by disengaging most of the deceleration/acceleration mechanism, and softly pushing the chairs into a big bunch...
I'm only repeating what I was told by the operator, so this is second-hand information at best: As I understood it, these are not computers like we have them on phones etc. They're more like SPSs (the industrial and completely overpriced "smart" steerings you'll find in a larger building's heating or automation system), but with more redundancies. So they're probably more like a glorified Arduino than like a smartphone. Thus, RAM and ROM are likely to be very limited. Maybe for the better! The simpler they are built, the more verifiable they are.
Meanwhile in Canada garaging isn't a thing that happens.
Do you also have a german channel?
Because in the last video i heard, you could also speak german. I understand german better, then english, so I would be happy, if you have/make a german channel.
Unfortunately, I do not have the time required for running another channel. I suggest using subtitles. I usually add them in the days following the upload, as soon as I get to it.
Now take this chair lift, cut safety in half, cut engineering time in half, cut number of crew in half, cut the budget in half, and you'll be ready to win bids and build in the United States.
“If you’re from the us you would call this a cable” because that’s what it is? A rope is made out of twine not metal.
Well, it's both. It's braided (if that's the right term) like a rope, but made of steel. It also conducts electricity for communication (in some cases), so it's also a cable.
Only the uneducated in the USA call it cable. Everybody else knows they are indeed ropes.
Not the kind of garaging I was expecting to see.
So not impossible then
*OR* you could pay a teenager to brush the snow off the chairs each morning.
Mate Americans think they have some complex vocabulary, everyone uses cable
It's at least the third video of the same kind by the same guy. Find something new, please !!
You seem to have repeated the same details overcomplicating the process in your description, and completely skipping over important details. You did not explain how the individual wheels were controlled. Do they have clutches? From your description, it sounds like they just slow down the tow rope, so it doesn't require a long distance to slow each chair to a stop. You never showed how they ungarage the chairs. I assume they do just the opposite, slowly adding them, which would take 5-10 times the regular time it would take for chair 1 to make a complete cycle. That could take 45 min to over an hour. This is not groundbreaking. It seems like they could better achieve the same thing with each wheel having it's own motor all controlled by the computer.
You should watch the video again.
He shows how the tires are powered by smaller variable speed motors, each driving a short section of the tires.
Then using the inductive position sensors and speed sensors on the motors, the PLC computer in the cabinet controls each group of tires to move the chair across it at the correct speed.
This is all covered in the video, with the motors shown, and the different sections shown as well (the tires painted different colors and spinning different speeds)
The only exception is the last set of tires on each end are driven directly from the rope way so they always match the speed of the rope.
I would guess that no cars are stored on the "Exit" set of tires (the ones connected directly to the rope), and so to ungarage you simply start the rope moving at a slow speed, and jog all the tires forward one car at a time, so that a car comes off the end of the last independent section of tires onto the Exit section of tires at the correct distance apart, and so unloading takes basically the amount of time for one complete trip by the cable at a slow speed, and entirely automatically.
@@ke6gwf Hi Ben! While I don't want to rate my own videos, I thank you for your kind defense ;-) Your guess is exactly right!
Pneumatic clutches exit I’ve seen them multiple times on leitner poma lifts
a rope and a cable isnt the same thing, stop.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_rope