1970년식 AC-2!! | 부산 광명빌딩에서 한국에서 가장 오래된 미쓰비시 엘리베이터 (운행중지) | The OLDEST Mitsubishi Elevator in Korea

1970 Mitsubishi AC-2 Elevator at Gwangmyeong Building, Busan, Korea

Gwangmyeong Building is a small, inconspicuous commercial building in Busan, and it was built in 1970. While the building itself is largely unassuming, it houses a gem for elevator and history enthusiasts alike: a vintage elevator manufactured by Mitsubishi.

Although it was decommissioned in 2017 based on the inspection history, the elevator car can still be viewed on the 6th floor. In spite of its age, the car remains in extremely good condition. The floor is finished with wood veneer, and the laminated wall panels, Car Operating Panel (COP), metal handrails, ceiling fan and fluorescent light covers all remain intact.

This elevator is extremely rare — it is likely the only known surviving example left of an early-type Mitsubishi Elepet in Korea (see http://trafficsignalsexploration.web.... ). The Elepet was first developed by Mitsubishi in 1961 as a standardised, low-cost elevator model. As characteristic of the 6th generation of early-type Elepets, the Hall Operating Panel (HOP) was completely redesigned. The call buttons changed from protruding, pop-out buttons to flat ones that were flush with the faceplate of the HOP. However, the Car Operating Panel (COP) still retains the old retro pop-out button design. In order to cut costs, the buttons on the COP also double up as a floor indicator. The lamps in each of the floor buttons illuminate to indicate the floor the elevator car is at, instead of showing the calls made inside the elevator car. This design had a drawback, as passengers could not tell which were the floor buttons they had already pressed on the COP.

In addition to the standard floor buttons, door open/close buttons, and emergency call button, this elevator is equipped with an emergency stop button. There are also “D” and “U” inching buttons to shift the car downward or upward in case it lands several centimetres off-level. A “PASS” button enables independent service, whereby the elevator car ignores all hall calls made at the lift lobbies and only responds to car calls made on the COP.

Unlike an earlier 1968 Mitsubishi elevator installed at the former Sogong-dong Building (소공동빌딩) in Seoul, which was decommissioned in 2016 and subsequently demolished, the door open/close and alarm buttons are labelled in Hangul. While operating instructions were not written inside the lift car, a plaque above the COP provides instructions in English on what to do in the event of an overloaded car. The capacity plate is mounted on the other side of the cab. Unlike most other Mitsubishi elevators of its era, the Mitsubishi name was not engraved on the door sills.

This elevator uses a 2-speed AC traction drive, also known as a pole-changer system, and has a rated speed of 1m/s. For Mitsubishi’s elevators using a pole-changer system, Mitsubishi named the controller model after the drive system. Accordingly, AC-2 was designated as the controller model. Although Mitsubishi marketed these elevators under the ELEPET name, the Korea Elevator Safety Agency’s (한국승강기안전공단) registration standards were based on the model name written on the controller. Ergo, the model of this lift as stated on the National Elevator Information Center (국가승강기정보센터) portal is AC-2, rather than ELEPET.

This elevator uses a selective collective control system, which Mitsubishi calls “2 Button Collective (2BC) control”. “2 Button” refers to the presence of 2 call buttons (one up and one down button) at each intermediate floor, whereas “collective” refers to the memory function that allows multiple calls to be registered simultaneously. Elevators using 2BC control answer car and hall calls automatically as the car travels through the hoistway, reversing direction after serving the highest or lowest registered call.

To understand just how rare this elevator is, let us delineate the history of Mitsubishi elevators in Korea.

Mitsubishi entered Korea as early as 1936, becoming the first Japanese company to export elevators to the country. Initial reception to Mitsubishi’s elevators was lukewarm, and restrictions imposed on Japanese imports after the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945 made it difficult for Mitsubishi to gain a foothold in the market. Mitsubishi’s fortunes began to reverse in 1958, when Reckermann Trading, Haushahn Elevator’s sole agent in Korea, agreed to also become an agent for Mitsubishi.