Two years of riding the door brake finally clicked for me

I used to always set the door brake to full stop on every car, figured it was safer for inspections. Then last month I was doing a mod in a 12-story office tower in Denver and the landing calls kept timing out. An older tech I was shadowing pointed out my brake was dragging the door operator motor, causing the relays to overheat and slow the cycle. He showed me his setup with just enough brake to hold the door, and the difference in call response was night and day. I still use full lock for service mode, but for normal ops I match it to the door weight now. Anyone else run into invisible door brake issues on newer controllers?

2 comments

2 Comments

rowanbennett28d ago

Man, talk about learning the hard way! I did the same thing on a freight elevator downtown and the owner kept complaining about "slow doors" until I realized I was basically running a resistance workout for the motor. @perry.jessica nailed it, barely hold is the move, I even started carrying a small fish scale to set the drag so it's just enough to stop the cab, not choke it. Full lock is for the inspection mode only, otherwise you're just paying the electric company to fight yourself.

perry.jessica28d ago

Same deal here, always thought full lock was the safe move until I watched a controller log show the drag eating cycle times on a busy lobby. Now I just set it to barely hold and it honestly fixed a ton of phantom slowdowns that used to bug me.