Learned something about elevator cable tension that surprised me yesterday

I was reading through an old service manual from 1998 for a Dover elevator we still maintain, and I found out the tension on the governor cable should only be about 15 pounds for that model. I've been tightening them to what felt right, probably twice that. It got me thinking about how many older units I might have over-tensioned over the years. Has anyone else ever found a spec in an old manual that changed how you do regular maintenance?

3 comments

3 Comments

gibson.elizabeth21d ago

Guess you found out the hard way that "feels right" and "spec" are not best friends lol.

troythompson21d ago

Dude my first gaming rig was a total mess. I put a 120mm fan in a case that only fit 80mm ones, had to zip-tie it to the top. Thing sounded like a lawnmower but I was convinced it was fine for like 6 months before it melted a cable. You ever do something that dumb?

drew69020d ago

Wait, did you see that video Linus did a while back about airflow? He actually tested a bunch of those "it'll be fine" setups and a lot of them were way worse than people thought. I remember @gibson.elizabeth mentioning something similar in a thread about cable management nightmares a few weeks ago. I think people underestimate how much heat can build up when you're just guessing at fan placement and clearances. The zip tie thing made me laugh though because I've definitely used shoelaces and twist ties to mount stuff that was clearly not meant to be there. Honestly sometimes you just learn the hard way that specs exist for a reason, even if it's a pain to look them up.