cleary@husc9.harvard.edu (Kenneth Cleary) (09/13/90)
In article <21000101@m.cs.uiuc.edu> irwin@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes: > >/* Written 4:38 pm Sep 11, 1990 by DAVE@ORION.BITNET in m.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.electronics */ >>Our elevators on campus are always quite busy, and we are looking to modify >>them with a 'remote control' to allow authorized personnel immediate access >>to a car when nessecary. We hope to do this by placing radio-controlled >>switches in parallel with the inspection key switches, and certain floor (I didn't catch the original article, but...) You should first of all discuss this plan with whatever agency regulates elevators in your area. Don't be surprised if they [politely] laugh, and tell you to take a hike. (My only experience has been with Massachusetts state elevator inspectors, when I wanted to find out what laws I'd need to comply with, when thinking about building elevator microcontrollers, though Mass. regulations are mostly just lifted from federal standards.) I thought it was overly bureaucratic (at first), until you start taking a serious look at safety. Second, assuming you get approval, just take a look at any major urban hospital, where such a system is implemented with keys, or numeric keypads for some code. Systems designed to allow physicians to respond to emergencies get abused by other physicians, to the point of making it faster to climb 15 flights of stairs, than wait for the elevator. (You think I'm joking?)
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (09/13/90)
In article <4163@husc6.harvard.edu> cleary@husc9.UUCP (Kenneth Cleary) writes: >>>... We hope to do this by placing radio-controlled >>>switches in parallel with the inspection key switches, and certain floor > >You should first of all discuss this plan with whatever agency regulates >elevators in your area. Don't be surprised if they [politely] laugh, and >tell you to take a hike... A good point. Long odds that you are not even allowed to *look* at the elevator circuitry without a licensed elevator repairman supervising. ("Not allowed" as in "seriously illegal; jail and a criminal record if they catch you".) Our local networking people, searching for a good place to put a gateway box in one particular building, discovered an elevator machinery room that looked ideal... until they discovered that they could be arrested for even entering the room without a licensed repairman there. -- TCP/IP: handling tomorrow's loads today| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology OSI: handling yesterday's loads someday| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry