Warning: Had a hoistway door interlock fail on a 90s Otis unit last Thursday

The car was on the 7th floor when the door just wouldn't lock, leaving the safety circuit open and the elevator out of service. I had to bypass it temporarily to get the car to the lobby for a proper fix, which felt sketchy but got people moving. Has anyone seen a specific uptick in these older Otis interlocks failing lately?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_kelly2mo ago

Wait you bypassed it? That's wild, how'd you even manage that?

victorb512mo ago

Yeah, the "how'd you even manage that" part reminds me of my buddy last week. He got locked out of some work thing, a two-factor setup. He spent like an hour trying his backup codes, which were all wrong. Then he remembered he had set up his personal phone as a backup device years ago, totally forgot about it. It was still logged in somehow, @the_kelly, so he got a push notification there and just approved it. Pure luck, really.

paulhernandez1mo ago

The old Otis 501 interlocks on those 90s units are notorious for that. The roller arm gets so much slop in the pivot it won't engage the lock cam right. I keep a few rebuilt ones on the truck now. For a temp fix, you can sometimes shim the bracket out a quarter inch with a washer to get the lock to catch, just to run it to the lobby. Still feels wrong to do it.