Importance of elevator data tags

This seems like a fairly straight forward item, “it is important to have the correct data tags on elevator equipment”.  This is the 2^nd experience I have had in the last few months where I have run into the incorrect information on devices which may have caused unnecessary issues with the elevator system.

Experience #1 - The most recent experience was at a school we are modernizing.  The elevator had been shut down for a long period of time.  I went to get the voltage off the disconnect and saw they had small wires so I assumed it was 480vac.  I needed the motor information as well, the power unit did not have a motor tag so I looked for a controller tag and found the tag below.

Well I got the information on the motor horse power but this didn’t make sense.  It is a 208 controller with 480VAC voltage. 

I looked in the starter cabinet and found the tag below.

Perhaps the transformer dropped the voltage down at the starter to the controller but the amps are labeled incorrectly.  What else is incorrect on the control system?  This reminded me of a project we did with the same package company which everything was mislabeled,  motor was wrong size, Oh yeah the floor to floor travel was wrong too.

Experience #2 – I got a call from a electrical engineer about an elevator that had an elevator on single phase with a converter to simulate 3 phase.  This elevator had been shut down for a month after running for 11 years.  He told me about this system and something didn’t make sense.  If the elevator was running for 11 years with no issues I don’t know how the elevator system was the problem.   I went to the building and looked at the disconnect, metered the disconnect, and identified the label on the disconnect was wrong.  The elevator was correct, the converter was correct, the disconnect label was wrong.  Previous to everyone’s involvement the elevator service company installed a solid state starter on the elevator that is fed by single phase w/3 phase converter and it didn’t work.  The building hired an engineer who didn’t meter the disconnect and spent time trying to figure out why the elevator was ordered wrong.  The elevator had run 11 years prior.  Due to incorrect labeling it was out of service over a month, lots of speculation why, not sure if the elevator is running because I never heard from the engineer after I pointed this out to him.   In this case the right solution may have been to put the mechanical starter back on.  And/or get the electrician who installed the phase converter in the same room with the elevator company.  This should have taken a few days, not a month.  

Take away - Everyone makes mistakes, controller companies, electricians, elevator companies and even myself.  If you have a wrong label, correct it by getting the correct information where it needs to go.  While you may know the label is wrong, the next person may not.  DO NOT TRUST LABELS, DO NOT TRUST WHAT SOMEONE WROTE ON THE CONTROLLER, DO THE DILIGENCE TO DOUBLE CHECK.  MEASURE TWICE CUT ONE.

If you have any questions or would like information from Colley Elevator you can go to www.colleyelevator.com, email Craigz@colleyelevator.com or call 630-766-7230.