Hi -

I'm a homeowner who does a lot of my own maintenance work (except for actually servicing my elevator, for safety reasons!). I have a National Wheel-o-vator Destiny. It takes 35 seconds to go from the first to the third floor, and we'd like to make it quicker.

The controller uses a Blain EV100 control valve. I read the directions, and there seems to be no adjustment for speed in the up direction.

Is there a way to vary the speed, specifically to increase the speed in the up direction?

Thanks for any advice,

Jerry

Up on a hydraulic elevator is usually full output of the pump when the motor is at rated speed. There isnt much you can do to increase the full speed of the unit

Thanks for the response. This may be correct, but it seems a little odd that the system is designed with a pump that 'only' has enough capacity to lift an empty elevator at about 40 feet per minute. If someone wanted a slower ride, for instance, I expect there would be some adjustment. My guess was that there was some sort of limiter, but it does not appear to be an adjustment on the valve.

In other words, simply relying on the power of the pump to set the speed sounds like a poor design decision.

Jerry

This is a home lift 50 fpm is the top speed, these were not designed for commercial use. E311 is right. The pump size, and pipe diameter limits the amount of oil to the jack. This means unless the unit is modified? What you see is what you get....

P.S. check the data plate on the car it should give you FPM....

OK this all makes sense. Install a 'grandma' elevator, get a grandma speed.

Thanks to all for responding ... before I did some serious damage!;)

This is one of the reasons that our company has dropped all residential units. Have had too many issues with customers working on their own equip. And then calling us after the fact to "mop" up. Too much liability, I don't blame the homeowner for trying to save money, but don't ask an elevator company to come in and make your weekend project right. It just isn't worth it

what needs to be remembered with hydro's is when going up oil is forced thru a ball valve that is pushed up by the oil being pumped. this is done so in the event of pump/pressure failure this ball valve drops back into place to secure this oil pressure thus holding lift in place. on all of these ive worked on there is no up valve for this reason hence no top speed up adjustment. this is why there is a down speed valve control and speed adjustment.

What determines up speed is these three things-
1. Motor RPM (we assume the hp rating has been sized right)
2. Pump GPM (assuming direct coupling, at the given rpm of the motor that is driving it)
3. Diameter of the piston(s)

Internal friction of the feedline increases the horsepower requirement, but it has no direct bearing on up speed per se. Assuming the losses of the pipe diameter has been figured into the HP calculation, (so that under a full load in the up direction, the horsepower requirement to move the lift at a given speed does not exceed that of the motor), then pipe diameter doesn't enter into the speed.

Friction losses? Yes. Horsepower requirement? Yes. But not speed.

It's all about the volume of oil flowing, and the area, (could be understood as volume) of the piston. If you had a jack where one foot of piston displaced one gallon of oil, and your pump was pushing a constant 10 gallons per minute, (remember, the motor has been sized adequately to compensate for not only the static car weight, and the full load, but also the losses due to the feedline pipe diameter and elbows, etc) then your hydraulic elevator would travel 10 feet per minute. Pipe diameter notwithstanding.

Thanks for all the info-I was trying to use the K.I.S.S. principle