Shared Knowledge

"Residential Elevator BRand Elevator - Call Buttons Clicking Rapidly"

21 December 2017

Summary: Control panel has two (2), small 12V batteries. One or both has gone bad and must be replaced.

Background:

Home elevator installed in 2007 by Residential Elevator of Florida. 3 stops, hydraulic piston.

Aware that Residential Elevator has used various electrical, electronic components over the years and this may or may not be applicable to your specific Residential Home elevator.

This may or may not be applicable to home elevators from different manufacturers.

Specifics of my system is shown below from label on outside of motor control room main control box.

Call Buttons Clicking Rapidly:

Call buttons clicking rapidly try to close all doors over and over again has happened maybe 3 times since it was installed. Once was after a power outage and simply had to use the main power switch in the motor control room to reset, correct, system.

Second time, checked that all (2) scissors gates on my elevator cab to be sure they fully closed, and then checked outer door of my 3 stops. Did not fix. And this, time  motor control room main power reset did not fix problem.

Opening the main control panel in the motor control room, I found two (2) standard 12volt batteries used in various alarm systems, battery backup devices, etc. and available at most big box hardware stores.

Turned off main power to elevator and removed both batteries, labeling terminals for easy reinstall.

Put volt meter on each battery and read 11+ DC volts.

Put 12volt charger on each battery until charger said fully charged.

Then used a 12volt driven air pump to test charge in each battery.

When air pump connected to each battery, air pump ran for seconds and then died.

??? Voltage valid although should have been 12volts or more and fully charged according to battery charger but both died when put on 12volt load.

Go to Home Depot and buy 2 new batteries making sure terminal mounts on top of battery matched size and direction of those off old Residential Elevator batteries.

Installed new batteries and turned on main power. All was well.

3rd Time:

Shut off power in motor control room and pulled both batteries. Both said installed by me in 2014.

Hooked each to battery charger and both charged 100%.

Again used a 12volt driven air compressor to test each battery and one of the 2 only ran air pump for maybe 1 minute while the second ran for 5 minutes.

Buy new battery and fully charge it.

Reinstall both batteries and turn on main power but call buttons still clicking!

Turned off main power in motor control room and reset break that feeds motor control room.

Unhooked both batteries for 5 minutes or so.

Reconnected both batteries and turned on main power and system fixed.

All I can assume is that electronic controller in main control panel needed to be reset and removing all power for several minutes accomplished this.