Elevator Control Panel, The Brain of Lifts
Elevators are being used throughout human history, but modern elevator history is not older than 150 years. Steam and hydraulic elevators had already been used but they were not safe until the discovery of the clutch in 1852 by Elisha. Following this discovery, the first elevator was installed in 1857, and elevators started to become an important part of daily life. The elevators were using hydraulic systems until the electric power utilization in the 1880s with the result of geared or gearless traction elevators replacing the hydraulic ones. In electric elevators, the mechanisms were used to install above the elevator hoistway in a machine room. After the 1950’s, hydraulic and ram elevators in which oil is used instead of steam returned because it was cheaper to put the machine room at the bottom of the building.
The first electrical controls were started to be used by relay techniques which are the same as telephones in the 1970s. And in the 1980s, with new developments, microprocessors are introduced to elevator controls. An elevator controller is a system to control the elevators and the elevator control panel is a cabin that holds all of the components to control the elevator. The elevator control panel holds all the power supply units, orchestrates all the operations, and ensures safety. Other functions like registering or canceling the car calls, door control, measurement of the carload, and the speed are handled by the elevator control panels.
Elevator Control Panels
Elevator control panel location is an important issue that is improved with the technology. It can be placed at the machine room above the shaft. With the help of advanced microprocessor technology, elevator control panel parts control the elevator operations. The parts or the components of the elevator communicate with each other by using Control Area Network (CAN). Typical control software of an elevator includes:
- An operating system,
- Task-scheduling programs,
- Input, output, and communication programs,
- Programs of optimizing and controlling the operations of the elements.
