Commercial garages often contend with insufficient or suboptimal space usage.
Maximising space is often an engineering feat that requires much expertise. Once again TTControl and HYDAC showed their true colours as they met the challenge with skill and finesse.
A leading supplier of mechanical car parking solutions in Germany, represented in several countries worldwide, looked to HYDAC for assistance with a “car lifting platform solution”, according to TTControl Manager of Technical Sales Team Thomas Liensberger.
Background
TTControl, a joint-venture company of TTTech Group and HYDAC International, offers control systems and operator interfaces for mobile machinery and off-highway vehicles.
Known as a specialist in functional safety, TTControl’s software and hardware platforms enable equipment manufacturers to develop highly reliable electronic control systems quickly and economically.
Mr Liensberger explains that in this case the parking solutions company had lifted platforms where cars could park on the upper deck and the lower deck and move up and down.
“The customer in this case specifically needed assistance to move a platform up and down smoothly.”
Solution
Mr Liensberger says this entailed a levelling process involving a cylinder on the left side and a cylinder on the right side.
“These cylinders had to be lifted synchronously to result in the accommodation of four cars on the platform: two on top and two on the lower level,” he says.
“However, if two cars are parked on the right side it would obviously be more challenging because the cylinder on the right side would need a lot more force to move up than the cylinder on the left side.
“So levelling was a really tricky business.”
PID control of the platform
Mr Liensberger explains that PID control of the platform achieved the required levelling.
“This was quite hard to realise because cars on the right-side pushed oil through the pipe into the other cylinder, for example, which then made the platform tilt-up,” he says.
Teamwork and collaboration resolve issues
Mr Liensberger emphasises that the “excellent cooperation” between TTControl, HYDAC, and the customer stands out for him on this project.
“Problems were solved from inception and collaboration saw the customer meet all project requirements from one hand, which makes for much ease than if the customer had to go to company A for hydraulics and company B for control,” he says.
“So, in this case HYDAC provided the hydraulics, controllers, and support, and I can categorically say that controlling the machine for the task at hand was very challenging: it was a very sensitive machine.
“No problem was insurmountable, with HYDAC at one juncture sending over an engineer who was expert in the design of valves to solve a problem.
“Can you imagine if the customer had to contend with another contractor with a different idea of how to solve the problem, and all the difficulties involved in finding synergy etc”.
Happy customer
Mr Liensberger says he is in regular contact with the customer, with emails usually exchanged around the festive season.
“Whenever contact is made, the company always thanks us again because they still really like our solution,” he concludes.
“It worked so well that the company used the same solution in a college: this means they took the solution and put it in another model, and they’re still selling thousands of these platforms every year.
“All this has obviously been a big success for TTControl and HYDAC.”
*image doesn’t reflect the real product, for demonstration purpose only
