Like many of you I’m sure, I’ve been shocked but not surprised to see two recent incidents where employees were seriously injured, one almost fatally, by falling industrial doors. In the first, Wolseley was found not to have properly maintained the door. In the second, Tata Steel failed to ensure the safety of two employees asked to fix a door. The employees worked directly for Tata, rather than a specialist door contractor.

I thought the article in the Spring 2012 Door Industry Journal about ageing industrial doors and owners’ responsibility for regular maintenance was excellent. In my mind, there are two issues coupled to the need to protect ourselves, and our customers. Firstly, how do we as an industry stress to owners the value of a preventative maintenance and service regime?

5000Nm Safedrive® Fi 

Guthrie Douglas now supplies the largest direct drive in the market. The 5,000Nm Safedrive® Fi allows direct drive to the heaviest of shutters. Previously, very big shutters required complex double door drives, but this simple package removes the need for challenging fabrication work. And you get all the benefits of the Fi drive – including ease of installation and commissioning and soft start/stop, ensuring smooth running and increasing its longevity.

 

 

 

 

There are now new foot mounting arrangements for our Standard chain drive units. These replace the previous brackets and slide rails, removing the need for welding and fabrication and simplifying the assembly process. The new brackets have fewer fixing points, anti-twist protection and optimised tensioning.

Our new Ranger Fi has solved a customer’s problem in automating a traditional 3” curved lath roller shutter on an underground car park. The shutter acts as both entrance and exit so is in regular use. Further challenges are it is fitted between walls with only a single-phase electricity supply available.

Our technical team designed a chain drive system so that the drive could be mounted inboard due to the between walls fix. They recommended the Ranger Fi as the only cost-effective solution for the high-usage, single-phase, inboard-mounted application.

 

When run off a single-phase supply with the correctly configured TS970 control panel, the drive has the capability of up to 40 cycles per hour. Its speed can be increased up to 80rpm on opening, so the shutter can be opened 50% faster than with a normal drive unit.

 

The team also worked to meet the end user’s need to retain the existing radio control system for opening the shutter, by interfacing the TS970 control panel with the existing radio control panel.