Elevator ride with panoramic view

Thoma Sets Another Milestone with Round Glass Cabin for Spectacular Elevator Tower on Aschaffenburg’s Main Riverbank

The city of Aschaf­fen­burg has gained a new attrac­tion: A free-stan­ding elevator tower with a viewing plat­form and a pede­strian walkway high above now connect the river­side green spaces barrier-free with Schloss Johan­nis­burg and the upper town, which lies 14 meters higher. At the level of Suicar­dus­straße, visi­tors can easily move from one level to the other. The height diffe­rence is over­come in just 14 seconds in a round glass cabin by Thoma Eleva­tors — offe­ring an impres­sive view of the Main River and the festival grounds.

Thoma was the ideal partner for cons­truc­ting this unusual elevator system. After all, our own flexible manu­fac­tu­ring and exten­sive exper­tise in buil­ding special instal­la­tions and custom-desi­gned eleva­tors are key hall­marks of our brand. Nevert­heless, the unique dimen­sions and tech­nical requi­re­ments posed a chall­enge and led to inno­va­tive solu­tions such as a round coun­ter­weight filled with lead and a simi­larly round control cabinet.

For the cabin, which was lifted into the elevator shaft as a complete unit, assembly in the factory was essen­tial. This allowed us to verify and ensure that all compon­ents from suppliers fit as planned—especially the round glass panels for the cabin doors.

Normally, all compon­ents are disas­sem­bled into indi­vi­dual parts to be assem­bled later on-site in the elevator shaft. However, this cabin left the factory as a complete unit. To allow it to be lifted later into the shaft, the roof of the already completed shaft was initi­ally only tempo­r­a­rily closed. Trans­porting the cabin as a single piece was a logi­stical challenge.

With the successful comple­tion of this extra­or­di­nary project, Thoma Eleva­tors has once again lived up to its repu­ta­tion as a specia­list in deman­ding custom installations.

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Source (german only): BR Fran­ken­schau Aktuell vom 25.07.2024

News Archive:
Interlift 2023

Attraction in Hall 1: The new Q 1.7 draws many eyes

Thoma Elevators showcased itself at the Augsburg trade fair as a specialist in custom installations and control systems, presenting its innovative lift concept.

Small groups gathered around the illu­mi­nated glass shafts with the large, highly visible red name­plates “Q 1.5” and “Q 1.7.” Our Q‑series systems were among the crowd favo­rites at the recent Inter­lift in October in Augs­burg and sparked plenty of conver­sa­tion among industry visi­tors and exhi­bi­tors who made their way to Thoma Eleva­tors’ booth in Hall 1. Nume­rous smart­phones were pulled out to film the low-main­ten­ance toothed belt drives as they smoothly moved the slowly gliding plat­form of the Q 1.5 and the much faster cabin of the Q 1.7 up and down during conti­nuous operation.

Many curious visi­tors couldn’t resist and took test rides them­selves. The many posi­tive comm­ents and strong inte­rest from both poten­tial private and commer­cial custo­mers confirmed our commit­ment to quality and innovation—also in our custom installations.

Visi­tors to the trade fair were able to admire on several screens and a large image gallery just how versa­tile we are in imple­men­ting indi­vi­dual customer requests, thanks to our own metal fabri­ca­tion and exten­sive exper­tise. It was not uncommon to hear the ques­tion, “And you build all of this your­selves?” when they learned that Thoma, as a medium-sized company, manu­fac­tures many key compon­ents in-house—from indi­vi­dual parts to shaft equip­ment, control systems, and custom-made cabins—enabling us to offer almost any special solu­tion inde­pendently of stan­dard dimen­sions. Passenger eleva­tors with minimal foot­prints, round glass cabins, spacious carri­ages for multi-ton loads—the images at our booth spoke for them­selves. Many more examples can also be found at http://www.thoma-aufzuege.de/references/.

At the trade fair, we also show­cased a sample of our latest control gene­ra­tion, the TMS 320, which has been in opera­tion for more than two years and with which we have already equipped around 50 elevator systems. With this so-called bus control, where infor­ma­tion between indi­vi­dual units and the central computer is trans­mitted digi­tally over the bus lines, many tech­nical features can be imple­mented: among others, the divi­sion into a control computer and a cabin computer as well as the linking to a floor computer each. It also allows for the reduc­tion of hard­ware in controls and the size of control cabi­nets. Other advan­tages include digital distance measu­re­ment (shaft copying) and an improved error memory.

The inten­sive deve­lo­p­ment work for our Q series now seems to be gradu­ally paying off. It began with the goal of reali­zing simple retro­fits on the smal­lest possible foot­print with a very low pit depth and led to the deve­lo­p­ment of the Thoma Lifter Q 1.2 and Q 1.5, compact plat­form lifts accor­ding to the machi­nery direc­tive, which we deliver as a complete unit with a finished glass shaft and can install within one to two working days. The ‘Q’ stands for the square floor plan, while the numbers indi­cate the external shaft dimension—depending on the model, 1.2 or 1.5 meters—with a large part of the foot­print (76%) occu­pied by the plat­form due to the compact design. Another special feature: access points can be arranged on all four sides of the shaft.

On this basis, we as specia­lists for custom systems and controls have now deve­loped a passenger lift accor­ding to the elevator direc­tive, that is: with a closed elevator cabin and auto­matic sliding doors as well as higher travel speed—the Q 1.7. Its proto­type already attracted atten­tion at Inter­lift in spring 2022.

Now, at the inter­na­tional trade fair, we presented the finished model of the Q 1.7, which is distin­gu­ished above all by the light­weight cons­truc­tion of the cabin. This means that the original lifter, which was only allowed to be operated with a ‘dead-man’s control’ at a speed of just 0.15 meters per second, has matured into a fully-fledged elevator suitable for ever­yone. The digital bus control in the shaft head ensures that the cabin stops with milli­meter precision at up to twelve stops without cree­ping. The Q 1.7 trans­ports a maximum load of 675 kg or 9 persons at a speed of one meter per second to a height of up to 20 meters. The proven arran­ge­ment of access points on all four sides of the elevator system is also possible. The Q 1.7 is also available with ‘simple’ pass-through loading in rectan­gular form with variable dimen­sions. As with all Q models, we manu­fac­ture the frames for perma­nent outdoor use from aluminum.

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