List of Dover elevator fixtures

This is a list of Dover elevator fixtures.

1960s-1990s

Old Dover Black Buttons

Most standard elevators were using the vintage black round buttons with white letterings during the 1960s. These buttons were made by GAL for Dover. The buttons are very simple without any illumination indication, except the hall stations, which have an in use light above the button. Additionally, there is no door close button; pressing a floor will close the door quickly and the car starts. Later on, the call buttons had a white halo around them, and an arrow on the button lit up green for up, and red for down, and the floor buttons had a white halo, which lights up when you press the button, but the door open and alarm buttons were not changed.

Early 1960's Dover/GAL car station in Memphis, TN (credit to Bluff City Elevators)

Late 1960's Dover hall station (Credit to Flickr user elevatorsonly)

Late 1960's Dover car station

1960s Dover COP (found in Vienna, VA, USA)

Traditional

Dover traditional fixtures came out in 1968 and could either be a translucent illuminating button with a black halo or a black button with an illuminating halo. Sometimes, they could be black buttons with black halos, but these were found only on Dover elevators from the late 1960s and early 1970s. The floor counters were translucent wedge shaped illuminating blocks with black numberings - these style of lanterns were also used on elevators made by Dover's British subsidiary Hammond & Champness (H+C) as well as those installed in Canada by Dover distributor Turnbull (these were branded as "Dover/Turnbull").  In the mid 1970s, the black button with the white illuminating halo started becoming less common. By the late 1970's seven-segment digital floor counters became available.  By the mid-1980's, a door close button became common on Traditional fixtures.  By this time, the digital floor counter was a dot-matrix display instead of a seven-segment display. 

1970's Dover Black Traditional hall station

Traditional indicator.

Dover Traditional buttons (Sydney, AU).

Dover Traditional floor counter (Sydney, AU).

(R) Albuquerque, NM 1985 Dover Traction Elevators at the Uptown Tower (2440 Louisiana Blvd. NE)

Dover traction elevators with the Traditional fixtures from 1985 (Albuquerque, NM). Note the dot matrix floor counters.

(R) Albuquerque, NM Very Nice 1985 Dover Traction Elevators at 6001 Indian School Rd. NE

More Dover Traditional fixtures (Albuquerque, NM)

Dover floor counter (Glasgow, Scotland) with the wedge shaped lanterns.

Dover Traditional floor counter.

Typical fake Traditional indicator

Unknown Dover classic hall station

Traditional Vandal Resistant

Not much is know about these fixtures as they are very rare, what is known is that the number in the middle lights up and the rest of the button is metal. These buttons resembles the regular Dover Traditional fixtures.

Dover Traditional vandal resistant buttons.

Impulse

In 1982, Dover introduced Impulse, which was quite common and had a very distinctive look. The floor counter is slanted down 20 degrees toward the floor as are the nameplate, emergency lights, and capacity label. The buttons are square-shaped made of translucent polycarbonate with rounded corners and are slanted upward toward the ceiling. On some elevators, the buttons and floor counter are not slanted; these version of the Impulse are called Custom Impulse, and are not as common as the standard Impulse. Until 1994, the door close, door open, and alarm bell had blue braille plates, and the braille plates for door open, door close, and alarm bell were black post 1994. Older buttons used contact blocks and incandesent bulbs and sometimes LED's (the buttons press smoothly), while later fixtures used microswitches and lightbulbs or LED's (the buttons click when pressed). The indicator often used red illuminated segments that used the same look of the numbers. For buildings with more than seven floors, a true digital indicator was used. ThyssenKrupp continued on using Impulse with minor revisions through 2001, but are now no longer made, and spare parts are still available today on special order. Impulse fixtures were also used on Dover elevators outside the US.

Dover Impulse call station in Singapore.

Impulse hall station.

Impulse hall station installed by Hammond & Champness (or H+C Lifts), found in the University of Kent, England. Note the plate reads LIFT instead of a standard Impulse arrow (Credit to benobve).

A full view of a Dover Impulse car station in Singapore.

Typical Dover Impulse car station.

Dover Impulse car station with blue door open/close brailles, and black ring around door open/close buttons

Standard Dover Impulse car station.

1990s Dover Impulse car station in People's Park Centre, Singapore.

Dover Impulse car station in Singapore.

High rise Dover Impulse car station in Rajanakarn Building, Bangkok, Thailand before modernization to Otis. (Credit to Foursquare user Ohh L.)

Custom Impulse buttons.

Custom Impulse car station with black braille plates for the door open, door close and alarm buttons (Credit to Instagram user dieselducy).

1990's Custom Impulse car station found in People's Park Centre, Singapore (Credit to Facebook page Elevator Enthusiasts of Singapore)

Dover Impulse button close-up.

Impulse indicator.

Dover Impulse car floor indicator found in Rajanakarn Building, Bangkok, Thailand (Before replaced to Otis elevators). (Credit to YouTube user tos311)

Dover Impulse car floor indicator.

Dover Impulse car floor indicator in Singapore.

Impulse floor indicator above doors (very rare).

Impulse car floor indicator installed by Hammond & Champness, found in the University of Kent, England (Credit to benobve).

Impulse hall lanterns at the St. Vincent Hospital in Toledo, OH

Impluse lanterns installed on inner door jamb.

Dover Impulse hall lanterns and floor indicator in Singapore.

This H+C/Dover panel uses an Impulse data sticker.

Vandal Resistant

Vandal Resistant is a circle metal button with the light in the middle, the light can be either red or yellow. The indicator was either analog or digital.  The analog indicator featured a black circle around the numbers, and a small light (either red or yellow) was below each black circle. The digital indicator was the same one used with Dover Traditional fixtures. These fixtures were continued by ThyssenKrupp. There is also a California code compliant version, with buttons that look very similar to Schindler vandal resistant fixtures. In addition, the vandal resistant buttons utilized the same assembly as the Impulse buttons, with the dual micro-switch design.

Dover VR Lantern

Dover VR COP

Dover Vandal Resistant Convex buttons.

Dover/ThyssenKrupp Vandal Resistant California code compliant car station (Credit to Flickr user Coffee on Sundays)

LED Vandal resistant indicator.

Dover VR Floor Indicator

Fake LED floor indicators

Dover made floor indicators that were blocks for each floor number, there would be an incandescent or LED light that would light up that would make the dots light up in the shape of the floor number, on some of the later floor indicators they would use a matrix indicator instead of using different blocks for each number. These floor indicators were used on late Dover traditionals and most Dover Impulses, ThyssenKrupp also continued to do this. These indicators looked LED when they were not.

Floor Passing Sounds/Chimes

Dover has been using mechanical bells for decades for the directional and floor passing sounds on their elevators (some don't have a bell or floor indicator while others have no floor passing sound but with a floor counter). Beginning with the Impulse line, Dover started using electronic bells for the directional indicators (Impulse directional lanterns didn't use mechanical bells). The floor passing sound was either a piezo buzzer or a higher pitched "chirp"; these floor passing sounds were also used with the Traditional and Vandal-Resistant lines.

The "chirp" was discontinued in the mid-1990s and elevators from then on until 2011 used the piezo buzzer for the floor passing sound.

Trivia

• From 1969 to 1999, Dover made their elevator fixtures in their Middleton elevator plant in Middleton, TN.

External links

• A photo collection of Dover Impulse fixtures brochure (provided by jimster586 on Flickr)
• Dover Impulse Signal Fixtures brochure (all scanned prints are from the Flickr link above)
• Dover Signal Fixtures brochure (all scanned prints are from the Flickr link above)