Push-in Terminal Blocks Save Space And Time When Building Lifts

Safety and comfort are still the top priority in elevator construction, but design aspects and individual customer requests are becoming increasingly important. For cost reasons, every millimeter of space is wrestled with. The elevator manufacturer must act flexibly when planning the system - also because norms and safety standards change frequently. Therefore, terminal blocks have to be connected quickly and easily and can be plugged in directly without tools.

This is how it works in the elevator systems from Osma, one of the largest German medium-sized elevator manufacturers. The company received the coveted Red Dot Design Award for its lifts in the Berlin design hotel Nhow. With predefined elevator programs, Osma offers many design options. If these are not sufficient, they are designed, manufactured and assembled completely individually for the customer.

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High demands on electrical engineering

The desire for individual solutions also places high demands on electrical engineering. With a vertical range of manufacture of over 90%, more than 1000 elevator control systems are built in the central control system every year. “Today, elevators are usually planned without an additional machine room,” explains Ulrich Kattmann, electrical engineering employee at Osma. "For the control, we need every free space available for the components - we use the 3.5 mm wide push-in terminal blocks from Phoenix Contact."

To simplify the later wiring on the construction site, the terminal strips for the connection of the control have been redesigned. The sequence of the connection terminals is now based on the individual wires of the cables that are led from the elevator shaft and the cabin to the control.

Supplementary information on the birth of the terminal block using push-in technology

Phoenix Contact has been developing and producing products with spring connection technology for decades. In 1978, the first terminal blocks with a directly pluggable spring connection and orange push button were created. The FK 1.5 was designed with the aim of enabling the installer to connect the conductor easily and securely. This was the birth of the modular terminal block using push-in technology. Osma also used this clamp early on - and has been using the advantages of push-in technology ever since.

Modular control structure

The additional space required for electrical engineering, which the restructuring would have required, could be compensated for by the compact design of the four-wire PT 1.5 / S Quattro type with 3.5 mm width. In addition to the multi-conductor, double-decker, three-tier and knife disconnect terminals, the range of the Clipline complete terminal block system also includes sensor and actuator terminals with simple potential distribution and infeed.

Osma uses the pluggable variants of the narrow terminal series for the modular control structure. The control panel for maintenance operations is prefabricated and connected to the elevator control system via the plug-in terminals. The PTRV type potential distributors from the terminal block range are used for potential distribution after the 24 V power supply. With a width of 8.3 mm, 16 - and on eight floors 32 - conductors with a cross section of 1.5 mm² can be connected. Variants with 6 mm² infeed and bridging option complete the range.

"Another advantage of the push-in terminal blocks is the conductor connection without special tools," says Kattmann. "We benefit from this in the workshop, but also when building the system on the construction site." Because the electrical wiring of the elevator control is done with pre-assembled conductors with wire end ferrules. Conductors pretreated in this way - even cross-sections down to 0.25 mm² - can be inserted into the terminal easily and without tools with up to 50% lower insertion forces. "This saves us a lot of wiring time and increases flexibility," summarizes Kattmann.

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Content of the article:

• Page 1: Push-in terminal blocks save space and time when building lifts
• Page 2: Orange pusher brings advantages

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