margaret_williams5•3d agoProlific Poster

Serious question: how long does it take YOU to diagnose a phantom door fault?

I spent 4 hours yesterday on a single elevator in a 12-story building in Omaha. The doors would close fine 9 times out of 10 but then randomly refuse to cycle. I checked the limit switches, the door operator belt tension, even the encoder counts on the motor. Turns out it was a loose wire in the controller cabinet that only vibrated loose at a specific floor level. Am I the only one who gets burned like this or do you guys have a standard time limit before you pull out the multimeter and start tracing everything?

3 comments

3 Comments

christopher_wells43d ago

Four hours on a phantom door is ROUGH. I had a similar one in a hospital where the door would stick after the morning rush, turned out the guide shoe had a hairline crack that only spread when the car was fully loaded. I give myself about 45 minutes before I start yanking wires and checking every connection with a multimeter. Otherwise you chase your tail all day and the tenant still yells at you.

claire_ramirez3d ago

Yeah but I mean, four hours isn't really that bad for a phantom door if you think about it. The loose wire thing checks out too, I've seen that same problem where the vibration only hits at certain spots on the rail. Idk why but people always assume the door hardware is the issue first when it's usually something simple in the controller.

henderson.wesley3d ago

So uhh, with the loose wire thing - did you find it by wiggling the harnesses or were you actually checking voltage drop across the terminals?