There's also compensating cables too. We are unfortunate enough to employ two such devices in our building for our electrics.
Hi Strad'; Compensating cables in the sense of the lightly tensioned / each link correctly oriented in relation to it's mates, black neoprene jacketed compensating chains normally found in the specialty products sections of traditional
wire and cable manufacturers' literature and site and often found swag-ing quietly and tangle free below trendy exposed elevator cabs?
A few decades back, when manufacturers were still promoting their products to appropriate contractors via 3" and 4" thick binders, I remember leafing through a thin "specialty products" section tucked in the midst of a thick 'Canada
Wire & Cable'
binder and thinking to myself: "Why on earth are Canada
Wire & Cable marketing welded link chain in a molded black neoprene
jacket, in three different sizes, designated by their "weight per lineal
foot?" My query continued to nag my thoughts for weeks to no avail and, as this was prior to the internet, Google, and convenient ready access to the world of data on everyone's
desk; years passed until one day, by pure happen-chance, I found my self staring at a shining example of the product's application. My then employer had dispatched me from southern Ontario to a trendy hotel tower in the midst of NYC for a few days to supervise the installation of the electrical aspects of some major pieces of automated scenery into one of the larger Broadway theaters.
Centered in the hotel's multi story
lobby, was a circle of six or seven elevators as somewhat of an architectural feature of the
lobby's decor. At
ground level, they were only accessible from one common entrance where you entered a smaller circular sub-lobby and were encircled by a ring of traditional looking elevator doors with the normal arrangement of
call buttons, indicators and arrival chimes. When you entered from the street at
ground level, you didn't initially see the elevator
lobby, or any collection of elevator doors and waiting guests but you couldn't miss the towering central core rising up ten or so stories surrounded by six or seven small, dark circular enclosures scurrying up and down the central core's walls.
The little traveling 'pods' were the architecturally designed exteriors of the actual elevator cabs with their lower halves in a tasteful dark finish and their upper halves swathed in a dark-tinted, one-way see through material shielding the cab's occupants from the stares of the collected masses below while simultaneously affording the riders a fabulous view of the
lobby and its decor as they ascended approximately ten floors until the view disappeared when you vanished into a more or less normal elevator shaft.
Being the 'techno-nerd' I've always been, I spent more of my free time staring up at the cabs than any other human being in the heart of broadway. I was fascinated by the extremely neat displays of chunky "cables" hanging down from on high then 'U-turning' upwards to the undersides of their related cabs.
First
pass through the
lobby: Hmm ... Dang neat installation. Matching lengths, all hanging straight with nary a twist or ripple. Near zero side to side sway. Real pretty! Almost a work of art.
Second pass: Hmm . . Six or eight cables per cab. Low
voltage control.
Power for door actuator, interior lights and fan. Comms cable for the mandatory telephone. But what the heck are those other, identically matching diameter, cables for?
Third pass: WHAT ARE THOSE OTHER CABLES FOR???
One day it kicked in: "Hey you dummy! You've been staring at those black neoprene jacketed, welded-link, chains marketed by their weight per lineal
foot for DAYS without realizing what you're looking at!!! Those aren't additional multi-conductor copper electrical cables. THOSE are traveling compensating chains cleverly disguised to match the look of the other cables and to keep them from clanking, rattling and tangling!
Yeah. It still fascinates and amazes me how something I've wondered about in the back of mind for years can suddenly
gel in an instant when I've dang near forgotten / basically given up on ever solving the mystery.
With apologies for yet another of my "TLDR" posts.
To tag this back to the beginning.
Strad': Is this what you meant when you wrote: "There's also compensating cables too." or were you referencing back to Mr. Bill's mention of circulating loops of varying
gauge stranded lift lines?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.