Home Forums General Discussion Technical Questions 5 Year Full Load Tests

When you guys or test crews (we don't have those) do 5 year traction full load tests, how many men are doing them? Typically.

2.

Where do you work? Outside North America?

E-man
Typically 2, a mechanic and a helper. Most of the test are 2000 to 3000lbs tests. There are occasions where the full load is much higher and we will bring in additional trucks with additional weights.

I will say this! A full load test in my opinion is a two man job at the least. Safety to me is more important then a maximised prophet margine...

How much prophet does an injured mechanic generate!

I'm in the states. We used to have 3 people on high rise cars. One would stay in the MR and one stayed downstairs and the other one would float to help in MR and help check things downstairs.

Just curious. Me and another mechanic just did 6- 43year old Westinghouse 4000lb capacity cars on OT... fun.

I love the old Westinghouse equipment. Although it doesn't always love me back. Any chance they had the firemans service added later? The three I have been taking care of for several months do. But I need the changes to add to the prints.

Glad to hear you are working safely.

hey JKH, I have seen you have inquired a few times regarding getting the drawing for the fireman's service upgrade to your old westinghouse equipment. I could be wrong, but I doubt you will ever get the drawing, if you did not find something on the job. I work in L.A. and, for quite a few years I would install fireman's service to bring the cars up to code. I have wired upgrade circuitry into many different types of manufacture controllers. The boss would give me an address, give me an allotted amount of time, and send me on my way. Every circuit was usually mapped out at the job, wired in and tested. Usually during the testing, you would find that your particular idea would cause some other problem to arise. You would then have to draw up some circuit to circumvent the problem. For the most part there were no standards to this procedure, you could only hope the person doing the change would clearly mark-up the prints. as you probably know, most companies that lose a job will send the mechanic to remove all there "property", including the prints. so over the years this info gets stuck in some schmucks pile of prints that he has not looked at in years, but he is happy knowing that he screwed his fellow elevator mechanic. i have ran across this more than a few times, and have had to hand trace and draw out the added circuit to try and repair it. it is time consuming and quite a pain, but it will work if you have the patience.

E-man here is St.Louis it is the norm to have a crew on full load tests. At our shop we have regular testing crews full time. Well one full time and 2 others that make up 50% of their work. Even a 2 stop hydro gets a crew and I belive that is the only safe way to test and test correctly. Your inspector is there to observe US preform the test not for him to preform the test. As far as missing prints or lack of mark uped prints hand wringing out each wire is the only way to recreate what was added. But what I have done, if you have a simalar job that is marked up or if not get a copy from Electrodyne (100-125$) those guys have added fireservice to about everything. And it will get you in the ball park. contact counts and relay nominclature will not match but it gives you a place to start.

If you're really interested in doing upgrades for codes...
Join LinkedIn and get Mark Sy's full profile..

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mark-sy/22/a07/210

Degreed EE, 40 some odd years and the elevator business, and has his own company and has been doing fire service, Emergency power, Baby Monitors, etc...For Years...

We've never had test crews and our repair "crew" is down to one man + the service guy (and/or other service guys on 2:1 rope jobs). They usually dump fixed price jobs on us service guys also. If I'm not mistaken, the other companies in this area have test crews. Our repair guy is a busy man, he's the only one that hauls weights around also. Makes very little sense to me, very inefficient. We just try to get it all done correctly and safely + catch calls and do mainenance. At least the safety part is something that's taken very seriously here.

I hear ya E-man. I don't know how young helpers are trained, because everywhere I look, I don't see any....

Times do change..
When I started, we turned our time in on a piece of notebook paper..
Hours straight time
Hours 1 1/2
Hours double time
Mileage and cartage.

That was it. Took about 5 minutes..
Aint the world of the Ivy league MBA's great..LOL..

Thanks Scott,
It's been the same here on the east coast. Taking information from a job is a common practic. We did hand over hand what we needed to make the repair. I believe it was Westinghouse (Schindler) that put in the overlay. A friend who has been retired for some time now remembers a write up for this overlay. Maybe I'm beating a dead horse!
The owners are saying they are planning on a mod. Boy if I had a dollar for everytime I've heard that!

Broke sheave
Time have change! But one thing is still true today as it was when I first started. The old timers still play a major part on influencing the people coming into the industry. Everytime you see a newbie doing something you taught take pride!