Electra Vitoria VVVF Lift Motor Help Sought

[malcolmsanford]

I'm afraid that these flats were not really well thought out for location or construction. The trouble was as is the case in a lot of areas in Ramsgate the old Victorian Sewage system was just not capable for sustaining the occupation forecast for these flats.

If I remember rightly these flats do not contain a service lift, I maybe wrong there but something in my memory tells me this, and as I never had any dealings with the lift side I wasn't paying that much attention. Do they have a service lift?

 

[Engineer54]

As you say, this lift does seem a little on the small side for a five story building, covering 60 flats. I was originally thinking along the lines of around 4 flats per floor. lol! I take it, that the average flat occupation is 2 persons making around 120 occupants in total?? Are you by the way one of the occupants of this building??

I doubt very much that the Otis service/repair reports are solely electronic, you can bet your life on their being paper copies in the system somewhere!!

As Malcolm stated, if this lift worked for 5 years without issue, then a fault has developed or something has changed within the plant room that is creating a new heat source. What was the original means of ventilation to the lift plant room? You really need to look at those service /repair reports, to see what Otis have been doing or not doing, since these breakdowns started.

I cant see a standard domestic floor fan being of much use at all, it's just going to blow hot around the room. There should have been an extract fan or fans sized for the correct number of air changes the room requires, to reduce any heat gain of installed equipment. To be honest an adequate means of forced ventilation should have been provided during the build!!

 

[netblindpaul]

5 years in a hot room, electrolytic caps drying out?...

 

[Engineer54]

5 years in a hot room, electrolytic caps drying out?...

That would be a very good starting point Paul, far better than plonking a domestic fan aimed at the lift motor!! lol!!

 

[netblindpaul]

Having worked for an Invertor/Servo Drive Manuf' on service & applications this is a common failure mode for abused systems.
So if the lift has a soft start/inverter that may be a good place to start.
However, the so called lift "engineers" who are not actually engineers probably have no clue about the deterioration of electrolytic capacitors in elevated temperatures.
Hmm, been here recently...
Recurring theme I think, competence I think is the word I am looking for!

 

[harrig]

Hello and thankyou in advance for reading this thread.

I have a problem which is completely beyond my experience but if I don't try to help a lot of elderly people are going to go through hell.

There is a 5 storey building of retirement flats in Ramsgate built by McCarthy and Stone in 2004, It was equiped with a single, cheap and cheerful, lift from Orona of Spain.

The lift is currently maintained by Otis who are contracted to Housing 21 who manage the building.

The lift fails on a weekly basis but no body is prepared to say why other than it seems to be a heat related problem in the plant room. This has been going on for 5 months.

I have just been to a meeting held by Housing 21 who are talking about a £60,000 refit program that will take the lift out of service for 8 weeks.

An 'independent' lift consultant has been paid to do a VISUAL inspection of the lift. Hardly surprisingly they didn't come to any conclusion other than the lift was underated for the job it has to do. ( at 90 starts per hour).

Does anyone have any experience of diagnosing problems with Electra Vitoria VVVF motor and control sets?

The point here is that the lift worked OK for 5 years and now it fails more and more. I believe that we are being railroaded into a hugely expensive and drastically inconvenient refurb because that's what is easiest for the suits who don't live there or have to pick up the tab.

How long would it take to do a like for like swap on the motor and control box - it's only a 450kg lift.

If anyone has any suggestions on how I can shed light on the true issues please reply.

All the Best

Unfortunately you get what you pay for. Cheap usualy means short life cycle. I am a consultant and one of my specific skills is identifying faults on lifts, not all consultants have this ability. I have inspected numerous lifts of this manufacture and in most instances remedials works have been necessary to over come the problem. It may not require a full replacement it may require a modernisation taking into account BS5655 part 11 or 12, EN 81-70 and EN81-80. It is also possible to carry out modernisation works where the lift is only take out of service for a short period of time. It is possible to install temporary means to move the tenants up and down the stairs.

Hope this assists

 

[Eschatonic]

Closing Comments.

Firstly thanks to everyone who read or replied to this thread.

The bottom line on this problem is that Otis completely failed to maintain the lift. And when I say fail I mean FAILED. Their solution was to rip out the Orona lift and replace it with Otis kit at a cost of £60,000 and a downtime of 6 weeks.

I finally got the management company to involve Orona who fitted a new gearbox (and other stuff) at a cost of £7000 and gave us a year's free maintenance plus a money back guarantee. The lift was out of service for about 4 hours.

Otis are now well and truly fired.

The Orona people that we have dealt with have been totally professional, fast and empathetic. Totally unlike Otis. The lift has now worked for over 2 months without missing a beat.

Thanks once again.

 

[malcolmsanford]

Thanks for the feed back hope we could have been of some help

 

[Engineer54]

Closing Comments.

Firstly thanks to everyone who read or replied to this thread.

The bottom line on this problem is that Otis completely failed to maintain the lift. And when I say fail I mean FAILED. Their solution was to rip out the Orona lift and replace it with Otis kit at a cost of £60,000 and a downtime of 6 weeks.

I finally got the management company to involve Orona who fitted a new gearbox (and other stuff) at a cost of £7000 and gave us a year's free maintenance plus a money back guarantee. The lift was out of service for about 4 hours.

Otis are now well and truly fired.

The Orona people that we have dealt with have been totally professional, fast and empathetic. Totally unlike Otis. The lift has now worked for over 2 months without missing a beat.

Thanks once again.

That can be one of the big problems with employing major companies these day's, paying top money for a service that is/can be less than satisfactory. We have had problems in the past with Otis, not on the installation itself, but as you have experienced, on the service side of things. Anyway, let's hope that Orona will continue to provide that service in the future!!!....

As Malcolm said, thanks for the update which is always welcomed!!!

 

[vaughant]

I thought it was mechanical from the start,it always is!!!!!

Only kidding,glad you got it fixed.

I was going to say that if it's drive controlled (which id expect) then there's a good chance you can read the fault code on the drive and see what it's tripping on,most have a current/load facility you can view via either a laptop or if the drive has a viewing device such as an LCD display on it.

I used this to prove a faulty fan the other day on a coating machine(the fan is 10ft approx in diameter and made of steel),I could see from the current draw it was out of balance as the readings were fluctuating significantly.

Works solution was to replace the motor but my belief was the fan is out of balance.it works now but I think it will soon revert to fluctuating current readings as well.

Didn't help the lad changing the motor got the phase rotation wrong and panicked(they only install,not test).
After swapping phase rotation at the drive(as it was R-B-Y anyway) it worked fine he admitted he couldn't get one of the cables on as it came off so just swapped it round!!!
Thanks for telling me after it sucked not blew!!