Gearless Home Elevator for Villas | 400 kg, 0.6 m/s

How a gearless traction machine moves a villa lift

Two words at the top of the specification describe the same thing: the way the machine puts force into the cabin. Gearless traction describes the machine; VVVF describes the electronics that feed it. Everything a passenger notices — the start, the stop, the landing — comes out of those two.

What "gearless" changes

A geared machine passes the motor's rotation through a reduction gearbox before it reaches the sheave that carries the suspension. A gearless machine couples the sheave to the motor directly. Three consequences follow, and all three are why this drive appears on villa lifts rather than on goods platforms.

• Fewer rotating parts. The gearbox is the part that needs oil and eventually attention. Removing it removes that line from the schedule and the oil from the machine space.
• A shorter, lighter machine. Without a reduction stage the machine body is more compact for the same duty, which matters when the plant sits inside a family house rather than in a plant room.
• A smoother transfer of force. There is no gear mesh to run through at low speed, which is where a lift spends most of its travel: starting, creeping into the landing and stopping.

What gearless does not change is the load or the speed: those follow the motor, the suspension and the sheave diameter, and 400 kg and 0.6 m/s are this model's figures whatever the drive family.

What 0.6 m/s means in a house, in seconds

Speed is easier to judge as time. Travel between two floors is the floor-to-floor height divided by 0.6 m/s, with door opening, door closing and the entry added on top. Arithmetic at three common villa heights, using this model's stated speed as the only input:

Those rows are arithmetic on this model's published speed, not published figures: height divided by 0.6 m/s, and the third column is three such runs. Your own floor-to-floor reading replaces the first column; the survey sheet at the end of this page is where to record it.

The rest of the journey belongs to the door rather than to the machine. Door open, entry, door close, and the time the household takes to walk in is where a five-stop villa lift spends its seconds, which is why the next sections give the door its own space.

Key figures, with the conversions you will need

Ten rows, each read from this model's own blocks. Switch the units if your drawings or your contractor work in imperial; the figures themselves do not change.

Every value above is stated on this page's own blocks. Where a figure reads up to or adjustable, it is this model's limit rather than a fixed setting, and the setting for your building is confirmed on the drawing.

Which two figures decide most villa projects

Load rarely does: a household already knows whether it is moving people, people plus luggage, or a wheelchair, and 400 kg with four to five persons is generous for the first two and ordinary for the third. The two figures that send a project to a different model are travel and layout.

Travel is settled by measuring floor to floor at every level, adding the readings and comparing the total with 15 m. A tall ground floor plus three further levels is the case to watch: 3.6 m and three floors of 3.0 m already reach 12.6 m, and a later loft conversion is what pushes a project over.

What is deliberately not in this table

Four figures a buyer will eventually need are absent, and it is better to say so than to leave them to be discovered. Pit depth, headroom above the top landing, cabin clear size and shaft clear size are not published for this model. They depend on the door layout, the finishes and the shaft your building can give, and they come back as dimensions on the approval drawing.

Two absences are worth naming for the same reason. There is no certification row in this model's blocks, so no certification, standard number or class is claimed on this page. And there is no published maintenance interval, so no service schedule is promised here; what is stated is the 1 year warranty line.

Four door layouts on one car body

Drive, load and speed are the same whichever door you choose; the door is what changes the building. Four arrangements are available on this model's automatic door system — centre-opening, side-opening, through-car and bi-parting — and the useful question is not which is best, but which landing each one leaves usable.

Choosing layout landing by landing

The four arrangements do not have to be the same on every level. A car set up for through-traffic still only carries doors where doors are wanted, so a ground floor can open towards a hallway while the upper floors open towards a corridor. What has to stay consistent is the car, the shaft and the order, because the openings are cut into the shaft per level on the drawing.

• Mark where the walkway is. The layout that keeps it clear wins by default, before anything else is considered.
• Mark which way people face on arrival. If the natural approach is off-centre, side-opening keeps the moving leaf out of the way.
• Mark the largest thing that has to go through. Furniture, a pram or a wheelchair sets the clear opening you need, and bi-parting gives the most of it.
• Mark the loop. If the household uses the lift in one direction on one floor and the other on another, a through-car removes a turn at every stop rather than at one.

Cabin and finishes: the part the household lives with

A traction machine is heard once a journey and seen never. The cabin is the opposite: it is the space a household stands inside and the object the lift adds to the interior. This model's blocks list three cabin materials — stainless steel, glass and wood veneer — with a marble or granite floor and an LED ceiling, and the three are alternatives on the same car rather than three different lifts.

Floor and ceiling, which are specified rather than chosen

Two surfaces are fixed in the specification. The floor is marble or granite: stone that takes the traffic of a lift car, holds its appearance, and can follow the stone already used in the hall. The ceiling is an LED panel, lighting the car evenly from above on very little power.

Because the finish is a choice rather than a specification, it does not affect the machine underneath: 400 kg, 0.6 m/s, up to 15 m, five stops and the four door layouts apply whatever the car is clad in. What it does change is the drawing, because panel thicknesses and fixings sit between the car frame and the surface.

The car as delivered

Tap to enlarge

Supply and control: one cable, two possible arrangements

The blocks give two supply arrangements — single-phase 220 V at 50 Hz and three-phase 380 V — and the machine is the same in both. What changes is the circuit the house has to provide, which is a question about the building rather than about the lift.

In most finished villas the single-phase arrangement needs no change to the distribution board: the plant position usually has a power route into it already, or one can be run from a nearby circuit. Choose three-phase when the house was built with it, or when the electrical design is still open and the load can be spread across three conductors from the start.

What the controls do with that supply once it arrives

The cabinet in the drive-path diagram is the VVVF inverter named in this model's block. It is where the site supply becomes a controlled drive: the incoming voltage is rectified, and the inverter then builds a fresh output whose frequency and voltage are varied to move the motor along its acceleration and deceleration ramp. That is the mechanism behind the two things a passenger notices — a start that does not jerk, and a stop made level with the landing.

The same block lists a UPS among this model's safety devices. It appears as safety equipment rather than as a supply option, and its coverage belongs to the approved drawing rather than to a figure published here. What can be said without qualification is that the control and safety circuits are supervised by the same cabinet that drives the machine.

Three readings worth taking before ordering

• Voltage where the machine will stand. A reading at the distribution board is not a reading at the far end of a long house. Take it at the position, with the household's normal load switched on.
• Where the dedicated circuit can be fed from. The lift should not share a circuit with something that is switched on and off, and the route from the board to the plant position is part of the drawing.
• Where the isolation point can sit. Whoever services the unit has to be able to isolate it without entering the car.

Nothing on this page states a current, a cable size, a breaker rating or a power figure, because this model's blocks do not publish them. They depend on the arrangement you choose and belong on the electrical drawing that comes with the quotation.

Safety devices, and how to check them at handover

This model's blocks name five pieces of safety equipment — an emergency stop button, overload protection, a safety sensor, an overspeed governor and a UPS — alongside the automatic door itself. Five items is a short list, which is an advantage: a household can check every one of them in a single visit rather than taking a schedule on trust.

What each device is for

• Emergency stop button. A manual cut-out inside the car, so that anyone inside can stop the machine deliberately rather than waiting for a control system to agree.
• Overload protection. Supervises the load against the 400 kg (882 lb) rating and prevents a journey beyond it. On a villa lift this is the device that protects the machine from a house move nobody weighed in advance.
• Safety sensor. Watches the door zone while the door is closing, so an obstruction is detected and the closing reverses instead of completing.
• Overspeed governor. Monitors the speed of the car against the trip point and acts if the machine runs beyond it. It stands behind the 0.6 m/s figure rather than in front of it.
• UPS. Part of the safety equipment in this model's block. Its coverage and reserve are confirmed on the approved drawing; what matters at handover is knowing which circuits it carries.

Handover checklist, in the order to walk it

Ten checks, arranged the way a handover visit runs: outside the car, then the door, then the ride, then the paperwork. Tick them on the page and the list stays in your browser.

Acceptance is a measurement, not a signature

Two of the ten are most often waved through. Levelling should be made from both directions at every landing. A car that settles level from below and slightly out from above has a ramp that is not yet right, and the fix belongs in the controller settings rather than in the shaft. Overload protection, meanwhile, is worth seeing demonstrated, so that the threshold is shown to sit at 400 kg (882 lb).

This model's blocks carry no certification row, so this page claims no certification, no standard number and no class. The declarations that apply to your market are supplied with the quotation and handed over at commissioning, which is what the ninth check above is there to confirm.

From drawing to first ride: what happens in what order

An installation goes wrong for one of two reasons. Either the shaft on site was built to different numbers from the machine, or the supply was assumed instead of measured. Both are prevented before manufacture, which is why the sequence below starts with a tape measure and only reaches a workshop in the third step.

1. 1. Survey and approval drawing

   Floor-to-floor heights at every level, the space available for the shaft, the wall each landing opens onto and the supply measured at the position. These become an arrangement drawing: car outline, door opening per landing, machine position and the route the supply takes.

   Nothing is ordered from the survey alone. The drawing is the first artefact, and every later step is checked against it.

2. 2. The three decisions that get fixed

   The drawing forces three answers: which of the four door layouts each landing takes, which of the three cabin materials the car is clad in, and whether the supply will be single-phase 220 V or three-phase 380 V. Each is cheap to change at this point and expensive afterwards, because all three are cut, drilled or wound into the unit.

3. 3. Manufacture

   The commercial block puts delivery at 45 working days, with a minimum order of 1 set and payment by T/T or L/C. The period starts from the approved drawing and the confirmed specification, which is why steps 1 and 2 sit in front of it.

4. 4. Packing and shipment

   Packing is an export non-fumigation wood box: the crate protects the car and the panel surfaces and clears the phytosanitary rules that timber packing has to satisfy in many destinations. Supply ability in the same block is 10 sets.

   Worth planning now: where the crate will be opened, since a crate delivered to a finished hall is unpacked where it lands.

5. 5. Site preparation, by the building side

   The shaft or space is made ready to the approved drawing: the opening cut at each landing, the plant position prepared, the supply run to the isolation point, and the route from the delivery point cleared. This step is the building's rather than the lift's, and it most often decides whether installation runs to plan.

6. 6. Installation, commissioning and handover

   Rails, machine, suspension, car, doors and the inverter cabinet are installed and adjusted, then the unit is run loaded and empty with the level of each landing checked from both directions. The handover visit walks the ten checks in the previous section and ends with the test reports, the rated load plate and the warranty start date.

What the building has to have ready before the crate arrives

Five things, in any order, but all five before installation starts. None is exotic; all are the difference between one visit and three.

• A shaft or space built to the approved drawing. The opening at each landing is cut to the layout fixed in step 2, not to the one discussed first.
• A clear route from the unloading point to the position. The crate is large and heavy and the car panels are finished surfaces. Discovering that the dining room door is too narrow is best done before delivery.
• The supply run to the isolation point. Measured rather than assumed, and wired to the arrangement chosen at step 2.
• A plant position that can be reached for service. Whoever maintains the machine has to stand in front of it, and that space has to be designed rather than discovered.
• A decision about who installs. The installation scope is agreed in the quotation and divided between the building contractor and the installing team before anyone books a date.

Upkeep, and what the 1 year warranty actually covers

This model's block states a 1 year warranty. That is the only maintenance or service figure published on this page, and it is worth being precise about, because running costs are decided less by the warranty period than by what the drive asks for once the period ends.

Three habits that keep a villa lift out of trouble

• Keep the landing approach clear. The door's safety sensor is looking at the opening, and a box parked half over it turns an ordinary arrival into a repeating reverse cycle.
• Keep the car floor and the door track clean. Grit in the door track is the most common cause of a door that begins to hesitate, and the stone floor specified for this car sweeps clean in seconds.
• Respect the load plate. 400 kg is four to five passengers, and a lift habitually run at its limit is one whose overload protection is working.

What to ask for with the quotation

Three documents make the difference between owning a lift and managing one. The first is the recommended maintenance schedule, since none is published here. The second is the spare-parts list, with the parts worth holding locally. The third is the test reports and declarations that apply to your market, this model's blocks carrying no certification row.

Everything in this section is either stated in this model's own blocks or is explicitly described as something to ask for. No service interval, response time, certification or parts holding is claimed on this page.

Ten questions buyers ask about this model

Answered from this page's own blocks. Where a question needs a figure they do not publish, the answer says so and names where the figure comes from instead of filling the gap.

What to send, and what comes back

Nine items turn an enquiry into a drawing, and eight of them are things you already know or can measure in one walk around the house. The ninth is the one most enquiries leave out, and it changes the quotation most.

Why the door layout is the ninth item

The first eight are measurements and preferences, and each narrows the machine. The door layout is different: it narrows the building. An enquiry that arrives with four floor heights and a supply reading but no landing information comes back with a question, because the openings cut into the shaft are what the quotation is drawn against.

What comes back, and in what order

First the arrangement drawing, because it answers what this page deliberately leaves open. It carries your car outline, the opening per landing and the machine position, plus the dimensions the blocks do not publish: pit, headroom, clear car size and clear shaft size.

Then the three decisions that have to be fixed before manufacture: the door layout at each landing, the cabin finish, and the supply arrangement. Once those are confirmed the order is written and the 45 working days begin. The load you sent is checked against 400 kg (882 lb) at the same time; if a single trip sits above it, the answer says so and names the model that covers it.