Electronic control systems

Our „crown jewels“

We like to define what we understand by quality ourselves. That’s why we have always manufactured all the components that are essential to us in our own production facilities.

 On the one hand, this makes us inde­pen­dent of a market that is prima­rily concerned with cutting costs. On the other hand, it allows us to respond very flexibly to our custo­mers’ wishes. The deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of our own elevator controls has been one of our core compe­ten­cies since the early days of the company. In a sense, they are our elec­tronic “crown jewels”.

We perform pionee­ring work

Time and again, Thoma Aufzüge has done pionee­ring work in this area and surprised the industry with inno­va­tive tech­no­logy: for example, with our self-deve­loped sensor push­but­tons, the relay controls that led to a reduc­tion in the size of the controls, our adap­tive desti­na­tion selec­tion controls with diffe­rent opera­ting modes, or the improved connec­tion of control and regu­la­tion for direct entry and quick start.

Even though Thoma Aufzüge has been produ­cing compon­ents for other elevator compa­nies since 1967 — for which, by the way, we are still able to supply spare parts — it was only a few years ago that we decided to further expand Thoma Compon­ents as an inde­pen­dent busi­ness unit. The divi­sion made its first offi­cial appearance under this name in 2017 at the Lift Fair in Augs­burg. In the mean­time, our product port­folio no longer only includes control­lers, but also regu­la­tors, spare parts for control­lers such as circuit boards and sensor push­but­tons, and long-life LED tiles manu­fac­tured accor­ding to our speci­fi­ca­tions, which can be installed very flexibly. In short: You can get almost ever­y­thing from us — up to complete elevator systems accor­ding to your specifications.

A wide range of options

Our mini controller, which we deve­loped for simple elevator systems, has been available since 2010 and can be used for up to twelve stops. The fusion of control and regu­la­tion in one compo­nent was a novelty on the elevator market at that time. The advan­tage of this control system, which is intended for normal indi­vi­dual instal­la­tions, is that it has consider­ably fewer compon­ents. Inci­den­tally, the mini-controller is also used in the Thoma Lifter deve­loped by Thoma Aufzüge and produced here — a plat­form elevator in accordance with the Machi­nery Directive. 

Our “big” control system can handle all options that arise in the stan­dard, no matter if diffe­rent types of fire evacua­tions, fire depart­ment controls or special trips with diffe­rent prio­ri­tiza­tions (common e.g. in hospi­tals). The combi­na­tion of compon­ents enables digital direct entry — with abso­lutely no creep path — and a quick start that is unpar­al­leled in the elevator industry. In this way, we have once again succeeded in signi­fi­cantly redu­cing stop loss times.

Lear­ning target selec­tion controls opti­mize operation

The Thoma desti­na­tion selec­tion control algo­rithm includes several opera­ting modes that auto­ma­ti­cally measure the elevator group requi­re­ments. In simple terms, how many people are waiting on which floor, and which floor they want to reach. Diffe­rent elevator control requi­re­ments, such as busy mornings or daily lunch breaks, result in auto­matic adjus­t­ments to the group control. The desti­na­tion selec­tion control is adap­tive and opti­mizes itself via stocha­stic para­me­ters. The vari­ants are offered with diffe­rent input termi­nals and can be adapted to customer requirements.

Since the deve­lo­p­ment of our first sensor scan­ners some 40 years ago — which were initi­ally not scan­ners as we under­stand them today, but minia­ture photo­elec­tric sensors — we have also conti­nuously deve­loped these compon­ents. By the way, the “behind glass” variant is self-cali­bra­ting and auto­ma­ti­cally adjusts to the glass thic­k­ness and ambient tempe­ra­tures. We even offer a special variant for instal­la­tion behind lami­nated safety glass. A sensible design for glass eleva­tors if the call panels are to be fixed in the glass.

Thoma quality for long service life

In addi­tion to push buttons, Thoma Compon­ents has the latest deve­lo­p­ments in LED tech­no­logy, such as our conti­nua­tion indi­ca­tors, lighting panels or LED tiles for cabin lighting. Here, too, our wealth of expe­ri­ence from elevator cons­truc­tion and instal­la­tion has been incor­po­rated into the product deve­lo­p­ment: Our LED tiles can be adjusted in size via prede­ter­mined brea­king points, they are easy to connect to each other, have a 12-volt emer­gency light func­tion, are dimmable as stan­dard and can be glued directly to the basic ceiling or alter­na­tively screwed on. It goes without saying that they are manu­fac­tured in the usual Thoma quality and have a long service life.

Because what applies to our eleva­tors is natu­rally also the stan­dard for our compon­ents: We build them for long, trouble-free opera­tion. They should not become tech­ni­cally obso­lete, which is why we offer upgrades for older control systems. Up to the latest gene­ra­tion, the TMS320, indi­vi­dual elements can be combined. We call this design down­ward compa­tible. If a fault does occur, that’s no problem either: we have a large range of spare parts — even for the very first gene­ra­tion control­lers. In addi­tion, we can usually repair older parts in our elec­trical department.

www.thoma-components.de