Really old and VERY heavy slate elevator controller.

This is a vintage slate lift (elevator) controller that I salvaged out of a skip (dumpster) when it was being ripped out of a building I was working on. It's from the early days of electrical controls, so the design is super-simple and very well engineered. It's notable that the electronically controlled replacement elevators (more than one) were a lot less reliable than this old workhorse.
It served three floors and has just three contactors with two NO (Normally Open) and two NC (Normally Closed) contacts on each. It also has the motor control contactor assembly with two sets of four normally open contacts and an interlock system to prevent both from closing at once (which would short out the incoming three phase supply).
The lift position control was done by three-position switches in the shaft at each level. The switches were physically moved from one side to the other and left in that state as the elevator car passed them. When the elevator car was level with the landing its switch would be in the mid position. The two outer connections of all the switches in the shaft were commoned and linked to the up and down contactor coils so when a call was placed and the appropriate level switch was energised it would feed the contactor to make the motor run in the correct direction. When the lift was at its destination level and its switch roller was moved to the mid position it would also break the control circuit for that level causing the contactors to drop out, stopping the lift and also preventing a call from being placed from that level. When the car door or any landing door was opened it broke the control circuit, as did end of shaft emergency limit switches and any other safety switches to prevent motor movement.
The three phase incoming power (415V) goes straight to the contactors and a tap is then taken from two of the phases via fuses to feed the control circuitry. This means all the call buttons and switches had 415V across them. There is no neutral connection used. And the car light would have had its own separate supply.
There's no speed control. The motor starts at full torque and stops suddenly when it reaches its destination. This makes for an exciting ride and limits the maximum speed, but the pay-off for that is ultra simple circuitry and the resultant reliability.
The contactors all have replaceable contacts and coils, and the car and landing call switches all had carbon block contacts, again for reliability.
It's probably worth mentioning that when I was a kid, the first job I wanted was as a lift engineer (elevator mechanic). But that was vetoed by my dad who said I would have to become an electrician first. In reality if I had ended up working with a lift engineering company I would have been in the same class at college one day a week anyway, as the City and Guilds 236 electrical installation course covered a wide range of electrical trades.
If you enjoy my videos you can support the channel by throwing a dollar to the elevator attendant for coffee and cookies at / bigclive
The weight of the slate control panel is:- 15.9kg (35 pounds) (2.5 stone)

[@DoctoreE644]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I worked for an elevator company that specialized in modernizing old elevators in NYC. I saw many similar boards, and loved watching them operate, from the time someone pushed a floor button, to the car going to the right floor, picking up and then delivering the caller to where they wanted to go. Yes, very Dr. Frankenstein in style and operation. As we used to describe the process of cleaning these things, you open the door of the control box, throw in a stick of dynamite, and when it went off, you opened the door and vacuumed out the dust and you were back in business. Yes, very robust equipment and truly indestructible. 😜👍

[@johndoyle4723]

I once was working at a cement kiln, and they had an industrial lift that took you up to one of 7 platforms on the precalciner tower. The lift was known as the "Tardis", you never knew where you would materialise. Some of these towers are 100 metres high,so using the stairs was not a realistic option, but you could end up on any level, despite what button you pressed. As always ,interesting video, thanks.

[@ComandanteJ]

+John Doyle Hahaha, very cool story.

[@pirate6955]

i operate a powerhouse that is over 125 years old. we have a bunch of stuff similar to this around. i think you'd love it clive. 4160 and 2500 volts the old stuff is. lots of bakelite!

[@BigClive]

+Scott Leonello First day of my apprenticeship about 35 years ago we were re-installing slate switchgear for a steelwork's DC hall. It was so reliable that when another steelwork closed the stuff was moved over.

[@RobertBeck-pp2ru]

I retired in 2015, but working as an electrician in a steel mill, we had many rolling mills and overhead cranes that used this construction technique. Some were built in the mid 1930s' , others as "new" as 1967. The slate backboards were indestructible, as was the wiring behind them. The high power DC contactors were mounted on the front to facilitate easy maintenance. The contactors did indeed require periodic maintenance, as the heavy copper tips would erode away due to mechanical wear and high current arcing. They all used arc suppression chutes and blowout coils to reduce arcing, but you could still easily hear from the plant floor, the constant popping as they opened. The newer cranes now use AC induction motors and solid state VS drives. Much less maintenance. Your channel never ceases to amaze!

[@hoilst]

"...and they just wished they kept the old, simple one instead." Except they can't. Because Big Clive nicked the circuit board...

[@kingemocut]

salvaged more like. they threw it in a skip, thus trashing it, so if anything big clive happened to dumpster dive for some decent tech.

[@krashd]

However that is illegal in the UK, kingemocut. When you put something out on the kerb it belongs to the waste removal service and removing it or anything from it is theft, gypsies and travellers get prosecuted for it all the time. Though until something is collected you can ask permission of the person discarding it if you can take it.

[@krisraps]

Its Not NICKED , It Was In Trash

[@railgap]

@@kingemocut fork-lifted it into a skip maybe. I've seen these things up close, they're stunningly heavy. Like tombstones. There were six foot tall, three foot wide, 1.5" thick slate control panels for the Denver Post (newspaper) printing presses I got to see. sadly, vandals had smashed all the gauges and much of the fancy surface-mounted equipment. Heart-breaking.

[@railgap]

@@krashd and people say the USA has stupid laws. @_@ (of course we do - everyone does)

[@tonymahon8723]

It amazes me that the old stuff was so serviceable! As an autoelectrician trained on generators and vibrating armature regulators, I really appreciate how good things were in the past compared with today where a screen tells you what's wrong, you unscrew that part, throw it over your left shoulder, and bolt on a new one.

[@riverhuntingdon6659]

Pop,BANG!,flash,click that's the sort of thing I understand and love. Would've liked a ride on that old lift. So much of this lovely old kit is being scrapped. There's a load of old electro-mechanical stuff being/been dumped by London Underground and the railways like this over the last 20 years or so. On the line I worked on we had the nasty plastic new Bombardier "Electrostrar" - which I called Electrofarces. These replaced all the old reliable stock by late 2005. The first time I drove one in a slight frost, the computers shut it all down and that was that. The old electric trains previously used flashed and banged abit in such conditions, but they'd get you there. Very sad day when the last of these supposedly oh so dangerous trains ran. The new order used TWICE the juice to do THE SAME job. And the timings were slower too. Progress? My arse. Give me an oldie any day.

[@harrickvharrick3957]

River Huntingdon yeah, they are too stupid to reckon what's tru value. or too greedy. selfish, corrupt, you name it. It is a shame, destruction done by people. it isn't mostly newbies that haven't learned to respect & learn (from) the (mistakes made in) previous makes and (by) the makers thereof, and that haven't learnt to build on in the fundamental problemsolving age solutions and experiences already gained but the most often it is elderly who are rotten, uninterested & lacking in positive characteristics. I am thinking.

[@WineScrounger]

You’d like the Moscow metro. Fast as hell, carries 7 million passengers a day. The stations are amazing. 50p to go anywhere.

[@aflockofseacowsesquire]

No wonder solid slate memory is expensive.

[@JonathanMorris777]

Boom!

[@theboysllc3174]

dank

[@Viic86]

+a flock of sea-cows, esquire well played, sir.

[@ChrisNorris]

+a flock of sea-cows, esquire Wish I thought of that one. I guess once they built it they could not make any changes - the design is set in stone...

[@phatkatracing]

+a flock of sea-cows, esquire Badum-tsssss

[@SakosTechSpot]

I really like the tactile sound the buttons make.

[@azyfloof]

What a _beautiful_ piece of engineering! You totally need to clean that up and mount it in a display case of some sort :D

[@pinekel1081]

did you not hear him when he said it weighed tons? He can't or else it would destroy the wall

[@PurityVendetta]

Late to this video but.... Wow, just wow. I absolutely love the shear gorgeousness of this contactor board. When I lived in Greece in the 80's I was volunteered to look after the lift in our little apartment block. If we waited for the owner to fix it it would never work! I was very popular with the old ladies in the block 🙂 The lift didn't have anything as lovely as this though.

[@robinwells8879]

High tech Arts and Crafts movement! Truly a thing of real beauty. The other wonderful bit of these old lifts was that you could see out to watch the ancillary components working. I used to use an old lift of this vintage in a house on Exhibition road in London. As a child it was the biggest thrill imaginable for a country mouse like me to travel in it. How anyone could throw it in a skip is beyond belief.

[@davewhite4907]

Memories! I served my time in a place that was full of kit of similar type(s). The place was all electro-mechanical, with rotating DC machines for generation and drives. Amplidynes, boosters, and a huge 11kV powered synchronous motor driven double ended Ward-Leonard set. All pretty reliable as long as it was kept clean.

[@birdbrain4445]

It's been years since I first saw this, and I'm still in awe of the beauty of this device. Not just on an aesthetic level, but in its engineering and method of operation. It is such a simple, yet also robust and effective system. There really is no reason to replace them from a practical point of view, as long as they continue to work.

[@PetrosArgy]

I love the old gear. I was using an old porcelain knife switch the other night with mica covered plug fuses to do an experiment with my seven year old daughter in basic circuits. Patent date on the fuses is 1919. We also wired in a Hubbell snap switch that must be close to 100 years old as well. We were able to take it apart, see the contacts inside the switch, put it back to together and have our circuit work perfectly. They don't make gear like that anymore :(

[@tsm688]

Is a snap switch the full-sized version of a micro switch? I supposed they had to exist but couldn't find one.

[@PetrosArgy]

@@tsm688 Yes and no. The snap switch I'm referring to is the old style of toggle switch they used in buildings for lights (and also the small metal handled ones that were panel mounted). They made an audible clunking sound when you switched from on to off or vice versa because the tipping point contacts were spring loaded. It was also to differentiate them from "silent" type toggle switches which could either use mercury contacts or non-tipping point contacts.

[@BvP70]

These circuits is without doubt the most beautiful elektromechanica and worth preserving. It's fascinating and like you mentioned it is so visible as it is working, very intriguing. This reminds me of my childhood (early eighties) when I played in an old abandoned factory in my village, where there was a telephone switchboard system for the whole factory area (multiple buildings) with rotary switch registers and many relays. I was too young to understand the historical value of it, however I was sad when it was destroyed by vandalism and later just demolished with the buildings. I observed it for hours to see how it worked, talked about it with my father and even went to the public library to read about it. Later I have seen one actual working, with a lot of noise and producing quite a lot of heat. My fascination of that kind of electronics never died, the logical circuits based on mechanical switches (relays) because it's so visual. The fact that it can be done nowadays much faster, more complex and with more features with processors and programming is great, but the roots of that logic is still the mechanical electronic circuits. If I would guess the weight of that board with electronics, I would say something around 22.5 kg. These relays were heavy those days.

[@SigEpBlue]

Mmm, literally-serviceable electronics. :) Almost tragic how much stuff like this is being simply throw away and lost forever, isn't it?

[@riverhuntingdon6659]

+SigEpBlue Pop, bang, flash, klunk...they way they ought to be. Used to repair old electric trains for the Southern Region of BR as was. Then we got all the souless plastic crap instead. Far less reliable. I for one am always sad to see old reliable clunky kit like this binned.

[@CassetteMaster]

+SigEpBlue I agree. I hate for history to be thrown away!

[@looksirdroids9134]

No, not tragic. That has been happening ever since humans first had stuff and it will ALWAYS happen.

[@looksirdroids9134]

@@riverhuntingdon6659 Might be less reliable but the "souless plastic crap" can do more. By the way, souls aren't real and inanimate things definitely don't have a soul, so they're all soulless. Also, it's "soulless".

[@looksirdroids9134]

@@CassetteMaster If history wasn't thrown away, we'd be swimming in it, literally. We wouldn't be able to do a damn thing. Keeping everything is bad.

[@davidsmith9063]

I was "terrorized" and awestruck as a young kid by these in operation also. I'm now obsessed with electronics and especially tube era and older equipment. Thank you for such a brilliant recap of how these work. 🤓

[@StevePotgieter]

I would clean that up, clearcoat it and mount it on my wall. It's beautiful.

[@BigClive]

+Steve Potgieter Clearcoat would be vandalism. It's going up just cleaned.

[@StevePotgieter]

Even better.

[@TheHellfiremissile]

Essentially I did the same as this a few months ago. Visiting our regional centre, the marvelous town of Lismore in far north NSW of Australia, I passed a skip outside of a 1970's building and they had all the relays and contactors of the lift. Now it was a three floor lift also and I couldn't resist plundering the skip and taking it home for inspection. Now lismore is a town which floods reasonably often and we had just experienced a catastrophic flood, which was possibly the reason for work upon the lifts. Love your videos.

[@waterpowerspaniels]

solid slate relays clive

[@BigClive]

Very solid.

[@4every1freedom]

Clive if you give us the markings on the other in/out contacts we'll try tell you what they were. As a trained lift engineer this video was pure dead brilliant. Takes me back to when fault finding was a lot easier.

[@BigClive]

+Scott Redpath They're not actually that helpful. Just A, B and C then 1,2 and 3 at the other end and 4 to 11 in the middle. The only indication that contactor contacts are even for cables is the different screwdriver-slot style of nut.

[@hotdogs1026]

Around the 6:11 mark, an orb flies out of the panel. Clive, it's time to break out that ghost detector again 😱

[@brianh.000]

+Hot Dogs Woah, wow. Where did that come from?

[@hotdogs1026]

+Brian H. I have no clue. It looked like it literally flew out of the panel. It was definitely a little creepy.

[@Mystere1985]

+Hot Dogs Also at 0:55

[@hotdogs1026]

+Mystere1985 Missed that one. Good call. I wonder if it's the same visitor from beyond. 👻

[@Jake-qq5pq]

+Hot Dogs I hate to ruin the fun but I think the orb is just a little bug that flys in and out of the shot occasionally. I saw it fly off from the bottom even later in the video after your sighting and it zigzagged around like a bug would instead of floating in a straight line like orbs tend to do.

[@robertparkes4982]

I love this beautifully made frankenstein stuff........It reminds me of the choke assembly of my old Rolls Royce Shadow....No electronics, just a butterfly attached to a coiled spring in a tube from the manifold which was closed when cold. When the engine was started, the heat would start to expand the spring, opening the butterfly and lessening the choke until the engine was warm ! They used this up until the late 80's.It NEVER went wrong ONCE !!

[@jackwhite3820]

Wow, such an elegant solution for taking out and replacing contacts. No tools required, this amazes me.

[@AsymptoteInverse]

I may be a child of the digital age, but I love well-designed pieces of electromechanical gear like this. Also, I'm guessing 21 kg.

[@SusiBiker]

"Cheap companies." True, but like you said - they are robust. They also look totally cool! I used to work as a teenager in a glass-cutting department above a decorating shop (Lodge & Son, Dartford) and we had one of these from the legendary Dartford company J&E Hall (aircon, etc for the Navy during the Wars). I loved it that lift! I so miss those old machines - polished brass plates, steel walls - awesome!!

[@pauljs75]

Maybe it's odd but I can just imagine the smell of the old electrics in there, big chunky stuff like that has it. A bit of ozone, PCB infused contact grease, bakolite, dust, and whatever else it was exposed to.

[@Mvs1010]

From Canada here, I know a highschool theatre that has a loading elevator still using this technology. It works fantastically. You can look out the top of the elevator and see the roller switches and the contacts for them at each floor (also three floors).

[@harrickvharrick3957]

Thing of beauty, and ingeniously made, that as well!

[@Xanthopteryx]

We had an elevator at a workplace i worked on some times ago. The engine room was lovely, with a kind of mini elevator that told the system what floor the elevator was at. When the big elevator was running, the speed was geared down to the mini one that traveled at maximum about one meter and then ran across different contacts, for each floor. The bad thing with this was: First one gets it! So you always stared at the yellow light telling that it was in use, and as soon as it was out you pushed the button, before any one else did. Then if you went on together with some other people, you always asked everyone what floor they were going to, since it only remembered one floor at a time. So if you had one person going to 8, one 5 and one 12 and you started at 3, you first pressed 5. When you arrived and the door opened, you pressed 8. The same goes there and you press 12. A lovely piece of engineering!

[@BigClive]

The mini elevator mechanism was the selector. To indicate where the lift was and if it should go up or down to respond to a call. The lift should have been able to store multiple calls and service them all in one direction at a time.

[@Xanthopteryx]

@@BigClive Thanks for the response! Sadly, it didn't work like that, but would have been nice. Especially if someone already pressed their floor. Then you had to go with them aaaaaall the way (Murphys law states they always wanted to go way high in the building and me wanting to go like one floor) before returning. Nice guided tour though.... BTW, if i have some stuff for you to look at, where can i get in contact with you? Tried e-mailing you but sadly, no response. :-(

[@LucasPereiradaSilva]

Can you imagine a 88-floor building elevator controller like this? :D

[@BigClive]

+Lucas Pereira da Silva The bigger systems the allowed multiple call latching from that eras were just incredible. Lots of rotating drums and cams that allowed the position of the lift to operate contacts in the control room.

[@LucasPereiradaSilva]

bigclivedotcom extremely complex! I think, being mechanical, the system would be more robust. Today, with programmable logic controllers, or even with simple microcontroller boards, its easier. I'm a begginner in electronics and I like to see your teardown videos. And the vids of EEVblog also.

[@stanleydenning]

At the time this was in service. I think that the tallest buildings were no more than teen stories.

[@CGoody5642]

@@stanleydenning if it's a hydraulic system pushed from the bottom, they are 8 stories or less. Anything larger is controlled from the top, and they went larger than 13 floors even earlier skyscrapers if I'm not mistaken. However some buildings may have had elevators that only ran a portion and connected to another. Depends what building and such

[@ThumpertTheFascistCottontail]

I love the look of these vintage electronics. And they usually make a great sound when they're functioning. I'm going to guess it weighs 13kg.

[@MattTrevett]

This is one of the coolest things ever. Thanks for making the video..

[@DielectricVideos]

I absolutely love old electronic equipment like this, and you can tell the quality of craftsmanship that went into the manufacture of this controller. Very nice indeed!

[@greenaum]

It's a beautiful thing. Would be nice maybe to make a bit of art from it. NOT to do any damage to it, of course, but maybe stick it on a wall with a transparent case around it, have the relays clacking along every so often. Maybe have the relays drive each other, though you'd need a delay element. Which could be electronic, or a microcontroller. Or it could be some weird mechanical thing involving sand and see-saws. Simplest idea would be an Arduino and some triacs I suppose. Would it work on 240VAC? Would 240V at least hold the contactors down? Just because I think it would be really charming to have them clacking away, once a minute or so. Perhaps have that configurable, too. Or perhaps a button (the lift button!) to reset it, then after reset it gradually starts to lengthen the time between changes. Quicker at first so there's something to see, but then slows down the changes, or stops and powers down altogether, when it's assumed you've had enough of the thing. You could, too, have a mains relay in front of the whole thing, to keep the power cut off for when you go to bed. Or a switch, whichever. Just so you don't have to worry about it catching fire. Not that it's likely to, if it's spent 90 years in a dusty lift shaft no problem. Actually if it did, it'd be the one thing you'd pull out of the ashes unscratched. Perhaps some neon lights with bronze bushing around it, or a nice teak panel, with the lift's call button installed there. You could even implement a tiny model lift shaft, an actual reconstruction with a tiny little lift. You could lend it to museums to confuse children. The 450V is a bit of a pain in the arse, but you could supply that from a transformer, maybe via a low voltage transformer, to isolate it and keep the current limited. Then it could be powered from something low voltage, be a little less dangerous. Anyway, that's for you to work out, but... art! This thing's just too nice, not to have it where people can see it. Well, "people". Geeks, obviously. Also would be nice to have a print made, a photo, of the back of the panel. Or a mirror behind it. So people can see both sides of the panel. Since it's such unusual construction, I've never seen anything quite like it even on the Internet, and I've been online since just about the beginning of the WWW. Bit of neon, brass, decent wood. Maybe even some enamel. Could be a beauty, after all these years hidden.

[@stanleydenning]

Top of the line for its day. You remember seeing this in action as a kid ? Damn, you must be old.

[@BigClive]

53. Electronics only really happened in the 80's.

[@Puckoon2002]

Clive have you ever visited the Manx Electric Railways sub-station at Laxey? Very large slate slabs for the switches and contactors and, when I visited many years ago, mercury arc rectifiers, cooled by the original wooden fan.

[@buddyclem7328]

That explains why so many people are driven to press the call button multiple times! I guess that behavior gets passed on from generation to generation without knowing why. Great video and a beautiful piece of equipment!

[@bobdvd]

Lifts/elevators and air conditioning, two things that I have never seen work reliably. Maintenance companies blame the manufacturers/designers and the designers/manufacturers blame the maintenance.

[@BigClive]

+bobdvd Two industries where there is a lot of unskilled labour used to allow for cheaper maintenance contracts.

[@MidnightMechanic]

+bobdvd I blame planned obsolescence, it's purpose built into most components today because there's a market for maintenance, and if you build things right the first time, then the market share of that sector goes down exponentially, potentially causing job losses across the board, and making communities dependant on maintenance industries to become deeply impoverished. Gotta love the power of money, huh? ^_^

[@bobdvd]

+Midnight Mechanic I work in the consumer electronics industry and I can testify that there isn't planned obsolescence. There are budgets and pressures that mean you build it as economically as possible and different companies have different price points but the only way failure is planned for is statistically. We assume a lifetime of x years minimum for every product (2-7 years on most devices I work with) and less than 1% of them should fail inside the lowest bound. But there is no explicit desire for them to fail after that. Actually most companies are proud when there hardware runs long. The only thing that conflicts with that is the sales team desire to sell new product but I have never seen this impact the design of a product.

[@ian_b]

+Midnight Mechanic Planned or "built in" obsolence is basically an urban myth due to a lack of understanding of economics. Everything is a balance of price and quality; you can make a product that lasts 100 years, but it will cost a fortune (and be obsolete anyway long before then). So products are made "good enough" and how "good enough" depends on what people are willing to pay, or can pay. The result is that we get more goods, approaching (but never reaching, due to uncertainties) the optimal supply of available goods for a given stage of technological development.

[@ian_b]

+bobdvd Having worked in AC maintenance, I can say that the basic problem is the huge number of individual components involved; loads and loads of valves, controls, fans, controllers, relays etc etc, any of which can fail. MTBF and all that. And office floors full of people who can't agree on what temperature they are comfortable at, leading to half the people always being too hot or too cold, especially in summer when the men are wearing suits and the women are wearing strappy tops and mini-skirts.

[@garethjuk1]

Whenever I see a bit of old kit like that, it makes me think of the engineer who designed it and what was involved in the design process.

[@BigClive]

+Gareth Jones A notepad and a masonry drill.

[@ComandanteJ]

"It's a harsh life" LOL.

[@Lumibear.]

I would happily frame and admire that as a piece of art and history.

[@joelgabriel3093]

If I were a steampunk fan, I'd want my computer motherboard made like that!

[@asj3419]

If you where a steampunk fan, opening your browser would be a day of hard work.

[@susanagodinho1909]

I remember these when I was a kid back in the 80's/90's. Just as you describe, start at full speed and stop with a bang. They even had a stop button to stop the elevator and you could open the doors between floors. Scary, but good memories ;)

[@hassanburrows8535]

From Simmons H.H. And Avery A.A. (1919) Electrical Engineering -Switching and Switchboards:" The insulation of low tension switch parts is invariably provided by slate,, marble, porcelain or ebonite, while for high-tension work, marble, porcelain, mica preparation, or special materials such as ambroin, etc are used.In low-tension work, slate meets with the greatest favour in this country (England) chiefly on account of its mechanical strength, cheapness, ease of working and good appearance when enamelled.It is open to the great objection that metallic veins are frequently hidden in it, and these sometimes are the cause of much trouble through leakage, and may occasionally cause a dead short circuit.Where trouble of this kind arises, the holes in the slate through which conducting parts have to pass may be bushed with ebonite or other imsulator.Slate is commonly employed for bases up to 500 volts, but above this pressure some better material, such as marble is advisable." (P766) At what voltage were the landing call buttons working? Or was there some cunning component to provide a safer working voltage than the 415 volts. That would be an electrifying experience! Weight? well I estimate about half a sack of phurnacite, shall we say 25 kilos in today's money, if you can still get phurnacite.

[@BigClive]

+Hassan Burrows Landing call station has been videoed and will be up soon. Full voltage!

[@tonybaines3332]

+bigclivedotcom if it didnt have a rectifier or a transformer it would have been tapped from a phase, nasty reliable stuff .... lol

[@goose300183]

+Hassan Burrows Cool, thanks for that. I was wondering about the use of the slate. I wonder if the stone could have come from the Slate Islands in Scotland.

[@hinternsaubachel5109]

This has just given a great idea for a for a furnace component I need to build. Thanks BigClive!

[@grahamrdyer6322]

It's like cars, there now so complex only a garage can fix them, where as in the older days .....you could.

[@cardboardboxification]

Car's are easy, every sensor can be tested, Just 0 to 5 volts dc... All cars use almost the same sensors..... And hall effect sensors you can check with a led light to see it flash, crank position sensor, i use a used 123 fluke scopemeter

[@firecrow7973]

+hill billy my dad is an actual mechanic, and he says cars are getting harder and harder every year.....

[@__WJK__]

+Mike Sanchez - Replacing sensors isn't so bad but compared to engines with sensors and those without... the sensor-less engines were definitely easier and less expensive to work on hands down. Battery, spark, fuel and carburetor adjustments were pretty much the only things you had to focus on and fuss with. Fortunately, with more complexity typically comes more advantages (ie) I'm not sure anyone would buy and drive a car to and from work with an engine that only gets 10mpg and produces a lot of pollution, especially knowing fuel prices could easily hit $5/gallon again ;)

[@ElectronicTonic156]

33.3 kg. Love the simplicity and durability of big ol' relays.

[@RobCCTV]

So "solid slate" preceeded "solid state"? ;-)

[@MrAlandh]

It was slate-of-the-art a century ago.

[@edgeeffect]

This is the best, certainly the greatest (literally), PCB ever.

[@davidhorner5655]

I’m a elevator (lift) mechanic in the states and I still work on stuff like this every day. Bulletproof for the most part and very easy to troubleshoot if you can find the print.

[@vector6977]

Total steampunk right there.

[@Rainbow__cookie]

But it's no water in it

[@pinekel1081]

@@Rainbow__cookie But theres no steam in it*

[@gs425]

@@pinekel1081 there's no punk in it neither.

[@pinekel1081]

@@gs425 Ikr its just fucking metal and old ass wires

[@pinekel1081]

@@gs425 Can most likely run linux still

[@djstringsmusic2994]

This I really interesting, I used to install residential elevators, it's really cool to see how things used to work.

[@spicy110]

27.8kg I'm feeling Spicy!

[@Bruceso94]

+spicy110 i didnt expect you to watch stuff like this :D

[@ibiza8426]

+Brazenhawk RT mmmmmmh spicy goat :)

[@Coneshot]

Beautiful piece of hardware, thanks for sharing that with us!

[@zx8401ztv]

Now that would have cost a stack of money from new, so much work to create a reliable control system, yep its a work of art. I bet the company did wish they had left it alone, silly buggers :-( Designed to last, unlike modern crap.

[@ianharrison6597]

+zx8401ztv ...and a fine example of how things used to be done before everything just had to have a CPU.

[@zx8401ztv]

+Ian Harrison So very true, and years after it was made we can still repair it without any special (of the era only) microcontrollers. . I like the old logic chips, basic logic that still appears to be alive all these years later, most you can still buy new.:-) Relays are such usefull devices, i dont think they will ever vanish compleatly.

[@OAleathaO]

2:39 - "And then you have to pull the door open yourself. It's a harsh life." I remember riding those in an old mall my grandma used to take me to in the early 80s. Sadly neither my grandma or the mall is around anymore. As a little kid those elevators were more fascinating than the "modern" elevators around at the time.

[@ATee-vx6dm]

It's a sin that they put these sorts of things in skips.

[@BigClive]

+A. Tee The people who throw it in the skip just don't even know what it is.

[@TheManLab7]

I love old bits of kit like that. They don't make them like they used to.

[@swallin19]

An idea, if you have a meter cupboard, put the board on a recessed door inside, with a new door over and surprise the meter reader man...........

[@JamesHalfHorse]

One of the most interesting technical conversations I have had was with an elevator tech (lift engineer) they are fascinating machines. It would be scary to me to work on not to mention I don't do confined spaces but properly maintained they are very safe. I need to check with one of my neighbors down from my shop. When I was doing some data work they had the old fuse panel with the glass power meters, knife switches, blade fuses on I think slate in just in a wooden cabinet in a stairwell. I said if they ever remodeled it I wanted it. At least 100 years old if not more but that is how it was done then. The buildings were there before electricity was.

[@salvatoreshiggerino6810]

It would be interesting to write some software that simulates an elevator to control with it.

[@btmiller14]

28kg, the good old days of electric controllers before electronics were widely used ( or still in valve format )and as you said pretty much indestructible and very interesting

[@Agent24Electronics]

They don't make 'em like they used to!

[@BrokebackBob]

Well obviously, they didn't replace the old elevator with an Otis elevator. I was recently at the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington US. I noticed the manufacturer plate inside the car. The control panel was vintage '60s but looked brand new. I asked the operator how reliable the elevator is based on the large number of passenger trips to the restaurant and observation deck. They said it had never been out of service except for normal servicing for the past 30 years. The identification plate said Otis Elevator and the place of manufacture was Bloomington, IN US which means it was made in my hometown . Cool.

[@veraxis9961]

A work of art. I'd hang that thing up on my wall any day. Also, is that really only 30 years old? I would normally associate a heavy, mechanical construction like that as being more like 50 years old, if not more. Is there any sort of marking on it that would hint at a date?

[@BigClive]

I got it when it was about to be scrapped 30 years ago. It's a LOT older than that.

[@rockytoady5875]

bigclivedotcom it looks like a 1940s to me

[@cbayer5012]

I reckon about 1924.

[@sparkyprojects]

That's a nice piece of history We had a couple of old lifts where i worked, but the controllers were a little more modern. I looked after the lifts, and helped the service engineer I like that style of contact, we had some where the top ones came out that way, the bottom ones were like hex bolts so could be easily unscrewed and replaced., even the coil unplugged.

[@nosferatu5]

3 stone, 3 rocks and 5 medium sized pebbles. so around 21,3 kg.

[@rose-ey6ct]

AAH: a relatively young lift control panel. Carbon contacts were the norm with many UK lift manufacturers well into the 70s. They were still making everything themselves. Contactors, Relays, buttons etc. Crazy. In my youth, I worked on a DC lift built in the 1890s, with a Royce (of Rolls-Royce fame) motor.No push buttons, just an up and down lever. 30Kg. Michael

[@AgropolSokoowoTV]

In my aunt's housing block there is still a old communist elevator - probably from 80's. But it at least unlocks the door automaticaly on the floor where it is situated (you still need to push the door) - it is a big fun to ride it xD

[@Ragnar8504]

Neat! Only a few years ago you could still find a bunch of even older lifts in Austria - these were so old they didn't have call buttons! You could only go up and once you closed the doors the lift went back down to the ground floor automatically - or not even that, some lifts had a "send down" button you had to push before closing the doors. I've never been able to dig into one but AFAIK the controls were super-simple. Only two actual switches, one wired to the "up" and one to the "down" contactor. The buttons inside the lift were actually long steel pins that both actuated the "up" switch and stuck out the side of the cab. When the cab reached its destination, a wooden bar in the shaft pushed the pin back in and killed the motor. All those lifts have to be upgraded now because lifts are required to stop more precisely at the correct height etc. Plus people have become a bit lazy and want to go down too. Loft conversions also killed a bunch of those lifts.

[@jason-ge5nr]

fascinating museum caliber artifact.

[@hobbit321a]

I loved these they were easy to work on and find the faults

[@davidturbo8566]

I just know the factory these controls were built in men died or lost limbs on a daily basis.

[@elektronikmaleinfach16]

the spirit from the early days with the knolege ftom today. i see it so often that people replace old stuff with new one and it its all build to fail after several jears!

[@Markle2k]

I was wondering just how old that could be and I found this text _from 1915_ that talks about slowdown mechanisms with high/low speed modes. I think your elevator may have been a wee bit older than you surmised if it was old school in 1915. books.google.com/books?id=nx0xAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA45&ots=X804fYWhfI&dq=slate%20elevator%20controller&pg=PA45#v=onepage&q&f=false Edit: I forgot, 28.2 kg or a touch over 62 lbs.

[@matthewsykes4814]

That is a thing of beauty. I'd go at that with solvol, an old tooth brush and lots of elbow grease. I might find a use for it and make sure the operation of the contactors can be seen And never forget that simple works a thousand times better than complicated, more reliable too

[@nickbreen287]

It has got to be more than 30 years old (1986?) I'd say 70-100!

[@horatioyachapovich6919]

Maybe pre war but I'm sure the design is as you say older. Electrical design is a hobby for me so what do I know.

[@nickbreen287]

simhopp Compressed paper circuits were available in the 1970's and in the 50's and 60's this circuit would have been constructed in a cabinet and wired. The components would have been standardized and not these custom build devices. So, at the very latest 1940's but probably well before WW2.

[@seraphina985]

+Nick Breen I would suspect that 1970's era elevators likely would have started taking advantage of the high power transistors that had been around since like the early 1960's too, they were being used in high power DC inverters driving the AC motors in metro trains etc by then after all. Could be wrong but seems likely given that the required technology existed and the increasing drivers for innovation in lift technology around the same time due to the increasing height of concrete and steel curtain wall constructions of the time.

[@ozonesama]

Neat... One of my grandpas was an elevator serviceman many decades ago, too bad he wasn't talking about it much. My guess for the weight is 9.70 kg. Thank you for all the videos.

[@TobyRobb]

Ha, solid slate, get it?!

[@Cypher791]

Hmm.. ~,~

[@fryode]

Thank you for the practical example. It was only just recently I learned about three phase power. Two months ago, I'd not have understood a bit of it. Three wires with no neutral tells me it's Delta, which is perfect for motors and 415V isn't such an odd voltage since that's just 240V*1.732, where we see half that at 208V Stateside with our mains the way they are. With reversing a 3-phase motor being as simple as swapping two of the hots, I see what those contactors are doing.

[@crazybob1954mo]

I'll guess that it weighs 19.4kg. But Are you sure it is Slate?? Looks more like a product called Bakelite. Bakelite was used for its electrical nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings, and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewelry, pipe stems, children's toys, and firearms. You should do a bit of investigating. The FR1-2 and 3 relays are reversing relays. They energize the drive motor in two different rotations depending on whether the elevator needs to go up or down to arrive at the selected floor.

[@LoricSwift]

+Bob Duvall I'm pretty sure Clive knows what Bakelite is.

[@crazybob1954mo]

+LoricSwift Slate is of a fine grained, foliated mono crystalline substance that also shares characteristics with other minerals that contain a type of Mica altered substances. There appears to be some degree of 'Cleavage' shown in the video which is Not a characteristic of Slate, rather so with Bakelite. Thus, I merely posed the inquiry as an opportunity to confirm the assertion. Most Kind Regards...

[@LoricSwift]

Sorry if my comment came across as patronising. I just meant it more in the sense that I'm pretty sure they stopped making Bakelite before I was born, and I know what it is, and Clive seems like someone with a lot more world experience in this sort of thing than me. Its wrong to make assumptions of course, but I would be surprised, I just made a comment to that effect, it wasn't meant as a criticism.

[@crazybob1954mo]

+LoricSwift No Problem. My past work profession seems to have created a habit of "Critical Curiosity". Slate OR Bakelite... Whateverrrr HaHa Still extremely interesting, vintage and cool! And Clive seems to come across all kinds of stuff like that! Keep up the good work Clive!

[@scheerBOM]

+Bob Duvall Now i have to ask, what profession creates a habit of "critical curiosity"

[@booboyBL]

Your grunt as you turned it over, as measured by my "gruntometer", (patent pending), tells me that it weighs 17.6Kg. Thanks for the informative vids Clive.

[@dngunder]

I love how all the elevator filmers came here because of the name "Elevator"

[@agenericaccount3935]

The sound those contacts make is just glorious. SO solid.

[@pchips6300]

"it's a hard life" hahaha 😂

[@albear972]

How fascinating. Things were made to last in the past not like today's disposable society. And this shows exactly that newer isn't always better.

[@southjerseysound7340]

38.2 kilos

[@makomk]

I remember seeing the slightly more modern wood-mounted equivalent of this after it was ripped out of some lifts at the university I was at. Was glad to see it go because the lifts were seriously unreliable and overdue for replacement. Not all older technology was better!

[@BigClive]

+makomk A lot of it is down to who is maintaining them. Cheap elevator maintenance companies do not employ skilled workers.

[@tomp2008]

but can it run Crysis

[@RealityAnomaly]

+Tom P. only on medium detail with antialiasing turned off.

[@poiuytrewq4645]

Tom P. I thought it was with antialiasing on low and it tanks when it's off

[@crackedemerald4930]

At around 120fps and 300°c

[@gartmorn]

Takes me back to working on the lifts at Longannet Power Station in the late seventies and early eighties before plc control and lift specialists took over maintenance! Circuit diagrams were like street maps of London!!! ;-)

[@NicholasAarons]

That is an Amazing piece of electrical engineering Clive. I would have loved to have seen the other parts that went with it. Keep up the great work. Nick.

[@chrispza]

Came back to watch this again. KISS. Deviant Ollam recently gave a presentation on elevator hacking; this one's bulletproof!

[@BigClive]

This one could be hacked too with some concealed circuitry for remote operation.

[@thomaslevy2119]

Older subways and trams used similar sized contactors to control their 600 volt DC traction motors. They needed very little maintenance and could operate for decades reliably.

[@callux93]

Looks like a good piece of industrial art.

[@theteenageengineer]

This is quite the controller, I wonder what year it’s from. Otis elevator company in 1956 used relay logic to control the elevators, and what relay logic was, was about 200 relays in series that made elevator decisions, they were actually very reliable, and some are still in use to this day. I don’t really think that using this particular controller is very safe though, modern elevator controllers have a ton of safety features, including: seismic equipment, limit switches, security systems, Fire detection, and way more.

[@kitchentable1362]

This belongs in a museum

[@ChrisCooper312]

Stopped in a hotel in Lancaster last year that had a really old lift. Manually operated door, and nice satisfying clunks when pressing the buttons. Only real problem was one time when I got back one night and had to walk all the way to the top floor as someone had left the door open at the top floor.

[@Aengus42]

Looking at that I suddenly remembered my bedside lamp at my Nan's. That "fishy" smell of warm bakelite & switches that would wake the whole house up if operated late at night. "Heave-Clunk-Sponggggg!" But what a genius material to make a board out of! Drillable, sawable, stable, great insulator & cheap. Even today you could buy proper Welsh slate roof slates & build simple circuits with lots of enameled copper & brass fittings.