Traction elevator modernization – Chicago, IL – Motion Control Engineering

 

This project was for a long time great customer of ours who gave us an opportunity to bid a building we did not currently do maintenance on.  The elevator had reliability issues and an FEO mandate component to it.

Existing elevator & project scope – The existing 14 story traction elevator was installed sometime in the 1930’s or 1940’s and has had many modernizations completed on it, the most recent modernization was the installation of the Virginia Controller in 1986

New equipment providers

Controllers – Motion Control Engineering

Machine – Hollister Whitney – New motor[Imperial Electric]

Door equipment - GAL

Fixtures – Innovation Industries

Traction elevator controller – The existing controller was a relay logic Virginia Controls relay logic with about 196 relays which each have 9 contact points for a grand total of 1,764 potential failure points just on the plug in relays not to mention the capacitors, resisitors and other electrical components within the elevator system.  The best part of the modernization was getting rid of the motor generator.  We went with the bullet proof MCE 4000 to replace it for its proven track record in reliability for midrise elevators.  

[Existing Virginia Controls elevator controller]

[Existing Virginia Controls elevator controller]

[New Motion Control Engineering [MCE] elevator controller]

Elevator machine– The machine was probably replaced in 1986 when the elevator control system was modernized and was in decent condition.  We added a new rope break, drained and cleaned the machine and addressed any leaky seals.

[Existing Hollister Whitney Machine]

[Retained machine - new motor, rope brake & paint job]

Elevator fixtures – Older historic buildings are always a challenge cosmetically to modernize because you want to keep the impact on the lobby to a minimum and still have it look good.   This lobby appears to have marble so we did our best to resuse the existing fixture boxes when size it up for the modernization while achieving ADA compliance.

[Existing elevator car station]

[New Innovation Industries car station with position indicator]

[Existing elevator 1st floor lobby with multi light P/I]

[New Innovation Industries 1st floor lobby with digital P/I]

Door equipment – The building had older GAL on it with smaller tracks which we had extensive reworking on to get the door interlocks to be in a more desirable and maintainable set up.  We replaced the door operator with another MOVFR II and refreshed all of the car and hall door equipment.

[Engineering visit - WOW]

[Finished product]

Car top & Misc – The car top was an absolute disaster upon our first visit with a lot of abandoned devices left from the last few modernizations.  With a little time and reworking we made this smaller car top look a lot better.

Take away – This was a total team effort on Colley’s part, we had 17 people from the company who worked on the project from the first phone call to the final inspection.  This project was ½ way complete when covid hit our area and was a challenge to complete during the “stay at home order”.  Everyone in that building stayed home, we had to still continue to go to work in the building that everyone was staying home in.  Something to think about. Our elevator teams persevered and landed the bird and turned over a great running elevator to service the 14 story.

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If you have any questions or would like additional information feel free to contact me at CraigZ@colleyelevator.com or 630-766-7230 ext. 107 or on our web page at www.colleyelevator.com

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