Wednesday - 1/24/24 More Lift Issues

[rogman]

These are old lifts. Now, I'm no lift mechanic, but I'm all too familiar with the problems of keeping obsolete stuff working, and lifts that are close to 30 years old like Skyeship and Needles fall in that category. Don't fall into the trap of thinking they'll last 40 years no problem. That's not how it works.

I don't know whats wrong with Needles, but lifts are fairly exposed to the elements and its pretty easy for them to get hit with lightning, static discharge, or any of a thousand random failures. Suppose it takes out an analog to digital converter chip. Not unlikely, those chips are typically connected to both analog and digital grounds. Little ground bounce due to this discharge, and they fry. Not a big deal, just replace it with another one. Well sh*t. That part was designed in some 30 years ago and is no longer made. Something new faster and fancier has replaced it. Different pinout, different design. Now, often these obsolete chips can still be obtained for a while from 3rd party sources. As they get scarcer, they become pricier. Eventually, they're not available for love or money. So you can't repair the board, and all the spare boards in stock are busted too, and you can't even take parts from two to make one working board. You have just entered a world of pain.

So the decision is made to redesign the board with up to date parts. Turns out there's seven other chips on it that obsolete too, might as well replace those too. So the EE designs a new board, its fabbed, and you load on the existing firmware and of course it doesn't work. The software was written for the old board, with the old chips. They need different code. Where is the original source code? Well, it was a Poma design, before it was merged with LP. Where is it. Stan's got it, unfortunately he retired 15 years ago. Is he dead? What happened to his "stuff". Eventually they find it in an unmarked box on a 5 1/4" floppy. They even find the compiler. Okay, so now they have to find a computer with a 5 1/4" floppy to load everything. Of course it needs a different operating system. Something called MS-DOS. Or maybe its CPM. IDK. Okay, so eventually they get a computer, the disks, the tools all working. The processor is a Z80, and its written in assembly. Anybody on staff know that? Of course not. Is Stan interested of doing the work? Anyway, its six month later, and there's still no working part.

And this is why you have to upgrade stuff periodically.

[daytripper]

Almost 3pm and now Stage II is on hold due to icing - 8 hours and you couldn't de-ice a lift.

To be fair you can't really de-ice a lift until you get it moving.

[SPORE]

Almost 3pm and now Stage II is on hold due to icing - 8 hours and you couldn't de-ice a lift.

To be fair you can't really de-ice a lift until you get it moving.

Damn - well played.

[simpletwist]

In the last sixteen years, K has moved and replaced the Snowdon lift, replaced the NR lift, and refurbished the K1.

Is that a lot? It doesn't feel like a lot.

They also moved the Poma for the KMS rats.

And put in a mid-station at the S3.

[skidogg]

These are old lifts. Now, I'm no lift mechanic, but I'm all too familiar with the problems of keeping obsolete stuff working, and lifts that are close to 30 years old like Skyeship and Needles fall in that category. Don't fall into the trap of thinking they'll last 40 years no problem. That's not how it works.

I don't know whats wrong with Needles, but lifts are fairly exposed to the elements and its pretty easy for them to get hit with lightning, static discharge, or any of a thousand random failures. Suppose it takes out an analog to digital converter chip. Not unlikely, those chips are typically connected to both analog and digital grounds. Little ground bounce due to this discharge, and they fry. Not a big deal, just replace it with another one. Well sh*t. That part was designed in some 30 years ago and is no longer made. Something new faster and fancier has replaced it. Different pinout, different design. Now, often these obsolete chips can still be obtained for a while from 3rd party sources. As they get scarcer, they become pricier. Eventually, they're not available for love or money. So you can't repair the board, and all the spare boards in stock are busted too, and you can't even take parts from two to make one working board. You have just entered a world of pain.

So the decision is made to redesign the board with up to date parts. Turns out there's seven other chips on it that obsolete too, might as well replace those too. So the EE designs a new board, its fabbed, and you load on the existing firmware and of course it doesn't work. The software was written for the old board, with the old chips. They need different code. Where is the original source code? Well, it was a Poma design, before it was merged with LP. Where is it. Stan's got it, unfortunately he retired 15 years ago. Is he dead? What happened to his "stuff". Eventually they find it in an unmarked box on a 5 1/4" floppy. They even find the compiler. Okay, so now they have to find a computer with a 5 1/4" floppy to load everything. Of course it needs a different operating system. Something called MS-DOS. Or maybe its CPM. IDK. Okay, so eventually they get a computer, the disks, the tools all working. The processor is a Z80, and its written in assembly. Anybody on staff know that? Of course not. Is Stan interested of doing the work? Anyway, its six month later, and there's still no working part.

And this is why you have to upgrade stuff periodically.

no wonder the little one's try to get away from you on the hill

[Mister Moose]

So the decision is made to redesign the board with up to date parts. Turns out there's seven other chips on it that obsolete too, might as well replace those too. So the EE designs a new board, its fabbed, and you load on the existing firmware and of course it doesn't work. The software was written for the old board, with the old chips. They need different code. Where is the original source code? Well, it was a Poma design, before it was merged with LP. Where is it. Stan's got it, unfortunately he retired 15 years ago. Is he dead? What happened to his "stuff". Eventually they find it in an unmarked box on a 5 1/4" floppy. ...

Exceedingly accurate description of real world problems, until they found Stan's unmarked 5 1/4" floppy., AND found a device to read it. That would never happen. Stan moved and his wife made him throw all that junk out.

[SPORE]

So the decision is made to redesign the board with up to date parts. Turns out there's seven other chips on it that obsolete too, might as well replace those too. So the EE designs a new board, its fabbed, and you load on the existing firmware and of course it doesn't work. The software was written for the old board, with the old chips. They need different code. Where is the original source code? Well, it was a Poma design, before it was merged with LP. Where is it. Stan's got it, unfortunately he retired 15 years ago. Is he dead? What happened to his "stuff". Eventually they find it in an unmarked box on a 5 1/4" floppy. ...

Exceedingly accurate description of real world problems, until they found Stan's unmarked 5 1/4" floppy., AND found a device to read it. That would never happen. Stan moved and his wife made him throw all that junk out.

So in layman's terms - a failure of the business to maintain adequate records to ensure it can resolve an issue in a timely manner if one arises? So "Stan" isn't the issue, its more on the department head / mgmt.

[Bayfive]

Grand pa , tell me again why the needles eye quad is not running

[Stormchaser]

Who is performing worse this year, snowmaking ops or lift ops?

Tie

[Dude GFY]

I miss Stan.

[Captain Hafski]

Almost 3pm and now Stage II is on hold due to icing - 8 hours and you couldn't de-ice a lift.

Not applauding their effort / results today, but they started loading cabins on Stage II at about 2:45 today. Shortly after 3:00, they began loading it [just in time for the Power Hour ! - Which BTW was pretty good as some of the best viz was at NE late day today].

NOTE: Even after they opened up Stage II, they were running two separate loops; peeps coming up from Rte 4 had to off load at Northbrook and reload [if they dared].

[newpylong1]

Supposedly the multi stage but be able to act as one lift was a first when it went in in 94 and therein lies a lot of the troubles. There have been tons of similar gondolas installed since but newer mechanicals which is why I said if they need to modernize all 4 terminals in essence only reuse the towers so be it. That lift has become too critical to be crippled.

[skiadikt]

Almost 3pm and now Stage II is on hold due to icing - 8 hours and you couldn't de-ice a lift.

Not applauding their effort / results today, but they started loading cabins on Stage II at about 2:45 today. Shortly after 3:00, they began loading it [just in time for the Power Hour ! - Which BTW was pretty good as some of the best viz was at NE late day today].

NOTE: Even after they opened up Stage II, they were running two separate loops; peeps coming up from Rte 4 had to off load at Northbrook and reload [if they dared].

they did that the other day as well. thinking what happens is, if they're just running stage 1 and stage 2 is down, when they do bring ultimately bring stage 2 on-line, that they can't easily join the 2 up w/o shutting stage 1 down and rebooting the system, so they just run it as 2 separate systems. maybe that's a question for T .

[Big Bob]

RE; The Village. Who would want to buy a place at a ski area where the lifts break down frequently?

[Mister Moose]

Supposedly the multi stage but be able to act as one lift was a first when it went in in 94 and therein lies a lot of the troubles. There have been tons of similar gondolas installed since but newer mechanicals which is why I said if they need to modernize all 4 terminals in essence only reuse the towers so be it. That lift has become too critical to be crippled.

The original gondola had 3 stages, and each stage was a separate drive cable. But it acted as one continuous lift.