Amazing this equipment still survives to this day! Nearly every example of this in the UK has now been replaced which is very sad and its sad to see these lifts go.
I worked for Express Lifts for 24 years from 1976 to 2000 started as an apprentis/trained fitter, moving on to Advanced and then Senior fitter before moving over to the management side. Great times and a great company until GEC and Winestock sold us to Otis and we all lost our jobs.
I started working for the Express Agent here right after the company had been sold to a much bigger player, uncertain times for all and our guys struggled to understand the different equipment, we used to sell Express to the high end buyers and the cheap stuff was FIAM, now the Asian stuff we install is made to a much lower price and standard
@@liftguy30wellington45 I installed and maintained many of the Italian made FIAM escalators while working for Express Lifts and they were built like tanks and very reliable, unlike the crap you get today. Even the small FIAM escalators with a smallish rake of 20 - 25 feet weighed in at 6 - 8 tons and the larger ones with rakes of 25 - 40 feet or more were in excess of 12 - 15 tons. They've all probably been replaced now with either Schindler, Otis or the cheap and nasty Chinese units.
These 3 gear-less DC traction machines are marvels of engineering! They were built like a battleship day in and out operation. It appears to be more of an issue finding replacement pats nowadays, an elevator made just a few yrs ago replacement or FRU can't be obtained. I'm familiar with two Otis winding drums installed in the early 1900's which are still in service today.
We rebuilt one of these machines when a few segments of the commutator shorted to ground, total cost including removal and reinstall came to about 54k in NZ money, with a Chinese AC PM Gearless coming in just under 6k it was much cheaper to mod the entire site than rebuild the next one that failed about a year after. Only had two fail after about 50 years of service and these were within 100 meters from the sea
@@liftguy30wellington45 I've seen a few videos where a communicator on a gear-less machine was repaired when one of the windings/communicator bar insulation shorted out. Those machines you have held up well, with just two failing in 50 yrs. Yes that was expensive to remove/repair/reinstall with a new one far less costly.
I'd always thought about parts being an issue, especially for lifts made by a company that went bust over 25 years ago. Never really thought about the people doing the work, but you're right! Those who would've worked on these sorts of lifts all the time, and possibly even installed them, are gradually retiring, and the younger guys don't have the same kind of experience working with the old gear.
Express didn’t go bust, when ECC in New Zealand was purchased by Schindler they stopped being the agent for them from 1991, Many lifts were labeled ECC Schindler at this time, In 1996 Otis purchased express and continue to supply many of the parts to this day, however most of the Express lifts in the UK would have then been rebranded Otis.
@@milus2200 these ones were fed via the GEC Gem drives which are thyristor controlled, they essentially reverse the machine to slow it down if necessary same as the AC machines, DC machines have massive amounts of torque so if you reduce armature voltage with full field they slow smoothly, the field is actually weakened to achieve full speed. If you press the wrong relay in the controller when running at full speed the motor will change direction and go full speed the other way (with some rope slip). They are very powerful.
On another site we had DMR’s which were like a scale model of a lift running the switch gear driven by selsun generator and motor sets, these were built by express under licence from Westinghouse so it is quite likely the motors would have been the same deal, most of the early castings say “Bull” Express and Westinghouse were doing deals for many years
@@liftguy30wellington45 DMR is certainly rare there are not many left mostly overseas in places like Hong Kong where there are still quite a few express installs.
@@WaygoodOtis these are VVT (variable voltage Thyristor ) with GEC gem drives, We did service several Express DMR’s (a copy of the Westinghouse DMR) but the last one was in Dunedin and was upgraded about ten years back, DMR’s were in wellington in Freyberg, PSIS, Rutherford and the Breeze buildings
Amazing this equipment still survives to this day! Nearly every example of this in the UK has now been replaced which is very sad and its sad to see these lifts go.
I worked for Express Lifts for 24 years from 1976 to 2000 started as an apprentis/trained fitter, moving on to Advanced and then Senior fitter before moving over to the management side. Great times and a great company until GEC and Winestock sold us to Otis and we all lost our jobs.
I started working for the Express Agent here right after the company had been sold to a much bigger player, uncertain times for all and our guys struggled to understand the different equipment, we used to sell Express to the high end buyers and the cheap stuff was FIAM, now the Asian stuff we install is made to a much lower price and standard
@@liftguy30wellington45 I installed and maintained many of the Italian made FIAM escalators while working for Express Lifts and they were built like tanks and very reliable, unlike the crap you get today. Even the small FIAM escalators with a smallish rake of 20 - 25 feet weighed in at 6 - 8 tons and the larger ones with rakes of 25 - 40 feet or more were in excess of 12 - 15 tons. They've all probably been replaced now with either Schindler, Otis or the cheap and nasty Chinese units.
Worked on many FIAM escalators, we redesigned the handrail drive to run chains rather than toothed belts which made them much more reliable
These 3 gear-less DC traction machines are marvels of engineering! They were built like a battleship day in and out operation. It appears to be more of an issue finding replacement pats nowadays, an elevator made just a few yrs ago replacement or FRU can't be obtained. I'm familiar with two Otis winding drums installed in the early 1900's which are still in service today.
We rebuilt one of these machines when a few segments of the commutator shorted to ground, total cost including removal and reinstall came to about 54k in NZ money, with a Chinese AC PM Gearless coming in just under 6k it was much cheaper to mod the entire site than rebuild the next one that failed about a year after. Only had two fail after about 50 years of service and these were within 100 meters from the sea
@@liftguy30wellington45 I've seen a few videos where a communicator on a gear-less machine was repaired when one of the windings/communicator bar insulation shorted out. Those machines you have held up well, with just two failing in 50 yrs. Yes that was expensive to remove/repair/reinstall with a new one far less costly.
I'd always thought about parts being an issue, especially for lifts made by a company that went bust over 25 years ago. Never really thought about the people doing the work, but you're right! Those who would've worked on these sorts of lifts all the time, and possibly even installed them, are gradually retiring, and the younger guys don't have the same kind of experience working with the old gear.
Express didn’t go bust, when ECC in New Zealand was purchased by Schindler they stopped being the agent for them from 1991, Many lifts were labeled ECC Schindler at this time, In 1996 Otis purchased express and continue to supply many of the parts to this day, however most of the Express lifts in the UK would have then been rebranded Otis.
Love to see this! Quitte rare today!
How do these awesome motors slow down? The inertia of the cabins, adding the weight of the cables must be overwhelming.
@@milus2200 these ones were fed via the GEC Gem drives which are thyristor controlled, they essentially reverse the machine to slow it down if necessary same as the AC machines, DC machines have massive amounts of torque so if you reduce armature voltage with full field they slow smoothly, the field is actually weakened to achieve full speed. If you press the wrong relay in the controller when running at full speed the motor will change direction and go full speed the other way (with some rope slip). They are very powerful.
Did Westinghouse build those motors ? They sure look the same
On another site we had DMR’s which were like a scale model of a lift running the switch gear driven by selsun generator and motor sets, these were built by express under licence from Westinghouse so it is quite likely the motors would have been the same deal, most of the early castings say “Bull” Express and Westinghouse were doing deals for many years
@@liftguy30wellington45 DMR is certainly rare there are not many left mostly overseas in places like Hong Kong where there are still quite a few express installs.
@@WaygoodOtis these are VVT (variable voltage Thyristor ) with GEC gem drives, We did service several Express DMR’s (a copy of the Westinghouse DMR) but the last one was in Dunedin and was upgraded about ten years back, DMR’s were in wellington in Freyberg, PSIS, Rutherford and the Breeze buildings
Está sucia la sala
they are strengthening the building so it is no longer being maintained and will soon be modernised