Live data from Hacker News

ThyssenKrupp Multi – world’s first rope-free elevator [video]

youtube.com

181–190 of 208 posts

Re: ThyssenKrupp Multi – world’s first rope-free elevator [video]

#181
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-deck_elevator is like that, but right on top of each other so the range isn't reduced. Most people are going between the ground floor and whatever floor their destination is on, so a shaft with two cars that go 0-50 and 51-100 wouldn't be very useful.

Indeed. Same article also covers shared-shaft elevators, exactly as I described.

Ah, sky lobbies are a neat solution to get more efficient use out of the two elevators, I've never encountered one of those!

Re: ThyssenKrupp Multi – world’s first rope-free elevator [video]

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The car motion is not independent and it's hard to use the capacity well. Consider the morning rush in a big office tower when everyone starts on the ground floor. You can only use the bottom car to move these people. You need a sideways dimension of movement to avoid this problem.

>You need a sideways dimension of movement to avoid this problem. you mean like the elevator system being discussed here?

Yes. I was replying to this comment:

> But if one elevator shaft can have multiple independent cars, suddenly you've got a huge capacity multiplier without the space costs.

> The horizontal motion part is cute, but I don't think it will matter nearly as much.

My point is: 1. Stacked cars are not independent. 2. Horizontal motion matters a lot.

Re: ThyssenKrupp Multi – world’s first rope-free elevator [video]

#183
post #138
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but I guess that enough value will lie in just being able to put a whole fleet of cabins into a small number of one way shafts. Horizontal travel with people inside is a gimmick, but a very illustrative one. I expect early adopters to overuse it for showing off and later regret it quite a bit, for the reasons you stated.

Actually they say that horizontal movement is critical. Because in the morning when all elevators go up, they need another shaft to return them down and make a loop.

Horizontal movement of the cabin, but not horizontal transport of people, as shown in the video.

Re: ThyssenKrupp Multi – world’s first rope-free elevator [video]

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with reduced mobility or reduced vision will love instant closing guilliotines.

A sensor to detect a clear doorway is straightforward. Doors that have sensitive rubber edges that can detect hitting something and engage a lock within milliseconds are also trivial. The two methods combined mean that you have safety for soft human fleshy bits incase either malfunctions, yet the door can still be moving at 15 mph or more and close in 100 milliseconds.

You're not thinking in defensive mode. What happens when the sensor fails?

Re: ThyssenKrupp Multi – world’s first rope-free elevator [video]

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SF garage my fiancee parks in has this thing made from an industrial belt, with steps bolted onto it. I think there are quite a few of those in Stuttgart as well, though they are being fazed out. It's very efficient, but not for ze stupits!

I saw one like this as a child, in Chicago. As I remember, it was explicitly only for the employees to use to get to the cars, as it was a valet facility.

That's what the one I saw was!

Re: ThyssenKrupp Multi – world’s first rope-free elevator [video]

#186

The elevator industry has been playing around with multi-cab systems for many years. The Otis Odyssey system (1997) [1] had cabs that could move both horizontally and vertically. The cabs were more like containers carried vertically in ordinary elevators and slid out sideways for horizontal movement. Otis built a full-sized prototype, but nobody ever ordered one. Otis considered ropeless elevators, but in 1997 it loo…

A forgotten concept is the Paternoster elevator

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster

A paternoster lift is a passenger elevator which consists of a chain of open compartments (each usually designed for two persons) that move slowly in a loop up and down inside a building without stopping. Passengers can step on or off at any floor they like. The same technique is also used for filing cabinets to store large amounts of (paper) documents or for small spare parts. The much smaller belt manlift which consists of an endless belt with steps and rungs but no compartments is also sometimes called a paternoster.

Nowadays certain safety concerns from the 1970s could be solved by incorporating modern safety features like auto-stop, automatic doors, etc in newly built ones. Express elevators could be built too, if they skip certain floors.

Re: ThyssenKrupp Multi – world’s first rope-free elevator [video]

#187
post #156

This might read a bit odd and tangential but I cringe every time I get into a ThyssenKrupp elevator. Thyssen and Krupp were huge fans of Hitler and the Nazis. The two families donated large sums of money to their cause. They both benefited from Hitler's support and promoted the use of forced labor. ThyssenKrupp is largely seen as a Hitler firm in many circles. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThyssenKrupp [1] https:…

You know what, nobody cares about that anymore. Only those who desperately want to be seen as victims.

Re: ThyssenKrupp Multi – world’s first rope-free elevator [video]

#188

The big benefit is that you get more than one elevator per shaft. For skyscrapers the amount of floor space wasted by elevators grows exponentially by the number of floors. Say you have a 5 story building that needs a one shaft elevator. 5 floors tiles 100 sqft per floor is 500 sqft of wasted shaft space. Then say you have a 10 story building that needs two shafts. Now you are wasting 10 floors times two shafts or 2,…

Why not invent and install spiral escalators? That would give you the high throughput of the paternoster more safely. You could still have a few elevators for travel between the higher up 'elevator lobbies' people mentioned.

Wow, cool... they have! http://gizmodo.com/feast-your-eyes-on-the-worlds-largest-spi...

There must be more spiral escalators now. I know there's one in Nordstrom's too.

Re: ThyssenKrupp Multi – world’s first rope-free elevator [video]

#189
post #164
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on your "safety paper"? Was it taped to the top floor, as a signal to get out?

Not OP, but here's how I think it worked: There are effectively two vertical shafts, and the elevator car goes up one and down the other. If the car flipped over as it goes over the top to the other shaft, then what was the floor would become the ceiling. So, tape something to the floor to identify it as it's going up, then wait for that car to come down the other shaft and look at where your identifying paper is. It…

Ah, yeah I guess that makes sense :-)

Re: ThyssenKrupp Multi – world’s first rope-free elevator [video]

#190
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's polynomial growth http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=100+*+f+*+ceil(f%2F10)

I deserved that. My examples understate the real life problem though. This missing factor is that it also costs more shaft time to serve a higher floor with a longer travel distance than it does a lower floor with a shorter travel distance. So in the simple elevator case, people from floor one hundred are going to be spending more time in the shaft than people from floor ten. Still not exponential, but cubic-ish grow…

Right, that also explains the concepts of 'express' elevators and lobby floors.

Due to the passengers the rate of travel for an elevator is not constant:

* There's a maximum rate of acceleration and deceleration that people are comfortable with.

* A longer travel distance means more time to speed up / slow down.

* Thus an elevator or two which are dedicated to operate at the longer distance travel that distance at a more effective speed and provide more rapid service.

* Even more importantly, it also cuts down on the number of slow elevator shafts necessary to service floors by allowing them to be stacked.

Post reply on HN