holly709•15d agoProlific Poster

Unpopular opinion: older elevators are actually safer than the new digital ones

I was working on a 1977 Otis in a building downtown Denver last Tuesday and that thing had zero computer glitches, just pure mechanical reliability. A month ago I got called to troubleshoot a brand new MRL unit that kept randomly dropping floors because of a software bug. Why are we swapping out bulletproof relays for touchscreens that freeze up every time the temperature hits 95?

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenix_grant15d ago

My uncle managed a hotel in Pittsburgh back in the 90s that had this 1962 Westinghouse elevator. Thing was a tank. Built like a bank vault with cables thick as your arm. One summer the HVAC went out on the roof and it was 105 degrees up there. New digital system in the other building shut down completely. That old Westinghouse? Just kept running. Only issue was the buttons got sticky from the heat but you could still push em. They finally replaced it in 2005 and the guys who pulled it said the motor looked brand new inside, barely any wear on the commutator.

jordan_henderson1315d ago

Ask @mileslane if that old Otis still uses the original relay logic or if they swapped in any solid state parts over the years? I've seen some buildings where they piecemealed in a modern controller on an old machine and it actually made things worse. The original 1970s stuff was overbuilt to last forever, but once you start mixing generations, the troubleshooting gets way more complicated than it should be.

mileslane15d ago

yeah man i totally get where youre coming from, my buddy manages an old office building in philly and they kept their 1980s elevator because the new one they tried kept glitching out every time someone so much as sneezed near the control panel. the old one just goes up and down, never had a problem in 40 years. i remember when they were gonna update it and the company quoted them like 80 grand for a whole digital system with a touchscreen that barely works half the time. they just kept the old one and it runs smooth as ever, no software updates needed, just regular oil and a belt change every decade or so.