Bentonite powder was what we use to use. Make sure what ever you use you clean the ropes and sheave grooves.

Changing the accel and decel rate may serve as a temporary solution. Other things you may look at is the amount of rope that is making contact on the sheave, the rope groove wear and the hoist cable diameter. All I'm sure you have already considered...

Just a suggestion if the ropes were lubricated and it has soaked in, would it make more sense to replace the ropes?

Fullers Earth and Comet will gum up. I would use a mild cleaner/degreaser and clean up as much of the excess lube as possible. The combination of a light car and counterweight, and over oiling the ropes will definitely cause traction problems. I just Inspected an MX10 that was tearing up the Drive Sheave after they re-roped it. those ropes had a dry hemp core and no lube. These things are a little sensitive, too much either side of perfect and you lose traction, or tear up a sheave.

Re-roping is certainly an option though they're not under sized or that old. I would just like to see if it made any difference to dry up the situation a little bit. It may also be worth while to check the counterweighting. It's a 5000 lb car and it's possible the counterweight is heavy.

I've been bitten twice in my career by this "over lubricating" using the Nylube type lubricator. Both times I used the Ajax/ Comet route to deal with my troubles. Yes, cleaning the sheave grooves is time consuming, and cleaning machines and car tops are part of the penalty, but it worked. I think it took three sprinklings to finally get it. I did have to modify speed parameters for the short duration, but you have to do what you have to do to overcome the trouble.

Wire brushed the ropes a few months later all has been good.

One concern I have is what, if any, long term effects the bleaching compounds in these products may have on the rope core or the frictional wear of the traction rope itself. I've never heard an answer or theory to the question.

Anyone?

Hey dirt, what were your symptoms?

All MX Machines are horrible on traction. You will even see ropes slip on inspection.. Just a horrible traction relation machine. Had one in Ft. Lauderdale that was Underslung (roped 2:1)and would lose traction at an intermediate floor and fault almost every trip. Think I remember this job had special ropes too. Lang Lay I believe. Don't remember if the MX's are all Lang Lay or not. Every Job I went on with MX traction problems all have had different solutions. Changing the Accel/Decel rate was always one solution. Wire brushing the ropes I never tried but could be another logical solution to a junk machine. Liquids and powders never seemed to work.. Double check your counterbalance too, if that is off the problem is much more constant. Even a couple hundred pounds can make a huge difference.

Ya I have been told several times that they are rarely balanced correctly. In fact, when we get a KCM drive repaired they only warranty it if we check the balancing and go through the brakes. As far as the symptoms, I posted on it about a month ago. My initial concern was the difference in measured speed feedback from the motor vs governor encoder, I never did find out how to correct this.

Thanks all for the input

I was told Kone want you to use the Draka lube instead of nylube.

Check the drive sheave the first one I ever put in was cut too deep from the factory and had to be replaced,ran fine for a while then started slipping.

I have had a similar issue, but didn't have the aid of getting into fault logs and data. We did it the old way, trial and error, and found adding a little car weight seemed to fix it. 3 x 15kg test weights on the car was the fix.

Depending on location, seismic, or rail settle can also mess with accelerate or deceleration issues. Maybe a quick tram stick to check points on rails. Some of my synergy cars show traction faults from horrible rail jobs.

I don't think weighting down the car is a solution, more like a band-aid.
I had the route mechanic take a closer look at the sheave today. He said the V grooves look like they're rounded. I think this is going to be the problem but I haven't been able to look at another one to make sure this is not normal.

I agree it was a band aid repair, but we had no info what so ever to help us, so at the time we did what we could.