Appreciation post: That older Otis controller I found in a building from 1987

I was swapping out a drive on a 1987 Otis elevator last month in a old office building downtown and pulled the cover off the controller. There was a hand written note taped inside from the original installer, dated August 1987, saying he adjusted the leveling after a 2 hour ride out from the shop. That thing ran 37 years without a major issue. Just struck me how simple and solid those old relay setups were before everything went digital and proprietary. Anyone else run across old paperwork or notes inside a controller like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

lewis.charlie27d ago

Oh come on, it's a piece of paper taped inside a metal box, not a time capsule from a lost civilization. I've pulled covers off old controllers where the "note" was just somebody's coffee order scrawled in marker. That said, I do respect that old Otis stuff, those relay boards could take a lightning strike and still keep running. But let's not pretend finding a note from 1987 is some profound spiritual experience, it's just a guy saying he drove a van to work that day.

-1

butler.brian27d ago

Double down on that, @lewis.charlie. Half the stuff people find in old equipment is just someone's lunch schedule or a phone number for a shop that's been closed since the 90s. It's more about the hardware itself still working than the random scrap of paper inside.