Halsten Elevators offers solutions for the installation, modernization, and maintenance of elevators, escalators, and autowalks, as well as service programs for building doors.
Controls in early elevators
Manual pushbutton elevator controls.Some older freight elevators are controlled by switches operated by pulling on adjacent ropes. Safety interlocks ensure that the inner and outer doors are closed before the elevator is allowed to move.
Early elevators had no automatic landing positioning. Elevators were operated by elevator operators using a motor controller. The controller was contained within a cylindrical container about the elevator servicing size and shape of a cake container and this was operated via a projecting handle. This allowed some control over the energy supplied to the motor (located at the top of the elevator shaft or beside the bottom of the elevator shaft) and so elevator servicing enabled the elevator to be accurately positioned - if the operator was sufficiently skilled. More typically the operator would have to "jog" the control to get the elevator reasonably close to the landing point and then direct the outgoing and incoming passengers to "watch the step". After stopping at the landing the operator would open the door/doors. Some slightly later lifts though, had door(s) that could be operated by the same control (so when the lever is moved in the desired direction, between the idle and motion points there is a trigger to close the doors. elevator servicing When the handle is moved to idle, the doors open again.) This sort of arrangement was used sometimes in subway stations. Manually operated elevators were generally refitted or the cabs replaced by automatic equipment by the 1950s. The major exception is freight elevators which today are just as common to be manually operated or have automatic operation, and even when equipped with automatic controls, they are often operated by an attendant to ensure efficiency.
Early automatic elevators used relays as logic gates to control them, elevator servicing which began to be replaced by microprocessors from the late 1980s.
Large buildings with multiple elevators of this type would also have an elevator dispatcher stationed in the lobby to direct passengers and to signal the operator to leave with the use of a mechanical "cricket" noisemaker.
Some elevators still in operation have pushbutton manual controls.
