Our terminal is equipped with Two types of lighting towers.
Terminal 1 is equipped with Abacus 40 meters side tilting towers whilst terminal 2 is equipped with lowering crown type towers supplied by others.
Durability
Abacus 40 meters side tilting lighting towers have been fitted upon our terminals since circa 1988.
During this period they have been exposed to the port's adverse weather conditions having wind forces reaching force 10 of the Beaufort Scale.(28.5to 32.6m/sec)
The other towers (crown lowering type ) were installed circa 1998, During high winds we have lost several fibre glass domes from the tower's top.
These domes are very dangerous, they are circa 2.5meters in diameter and are fitted at 40 mts above ground upon the crown ring mechanism.
Setting Out
Our Container Terminal is a confined stacking layout and the terminal lighting including the setting out of the towers was treated at the very early design stages.
All towers are situated within the vehicular passages of the terminal and can be side tilted or lowering of the crown without effecting the terminal transhipment operations.
Maintenance
The steel work of the Abacus towers have a very low or no maintenance at all .
Though our towers are erected upon a concrete protection islands and having protection bollards we have experienced a few terminal equipment colliding with towers.
The extremely reinforced lower part of the tower having very durable steel sections, can withstand these impacts without the need of any repairs or maintenance.
The base hinges of the towers are in built inside the tower and are not effected with the sea spray.
The lower crown type towers have a considerable amount of maintenance within the crown mechanism such as the servicing of the cable pulleys, replacement of crown holding down clips, replacement of crown lowering steel cables, additional electrical cable lengths which are being kept coiled within the mast to enabling the lowering of the crown and a a fibre glass dome to protect all mentioned mechanism (few occasions was blown by the winds).
The hydraulic Lower machine of the side tilting towers and the crown lowering machines are kept within the terminal stores and are hardly ever serviced, we have replaced few hydraulic seals and re painted their steel frame.
I would say that both machines have low maintenance.
Installation / light fittings
Al side tilting towers are equipped with Tee bars or umbrella type frame having a maximum of 8x 1000 watts lighting reflectors type 68 Faeber 8 x 1000w with control gear boxes.
Same for the crown lowering type the are equipped with 8 luminaries x 1000w each.
Including to the light fittings some of the towers have the IT transmitting installations.
It was very easy to install additional transmitting equipment upon Abacus towers.
These were installed on top of the tower and some times mid way without any problems at all .
Every thing was straight forward.
The installations upon the crown lowering towers was more difficult.
We had to install additional cable pulleys on the top of the tower involving mobile cranes with man cage reaching 40mts height .
To carry out these works we had to close some terminal vehicular passages, effecting terminal operations.
Had to order special tailor made cable which includes power supply and cat 5 in one cable and of a specified diameter enabling the cable routing through the tower's pulley system.
Due to the extra length of cable allowing the lowering of the crown IT department with the aid of some foreign expertise had to carry out some modifications within the transmitting system.
Due to the lowering of the crown the mid way installations was out of the question and created a problem because the IT equipment had to be installed at latitude of 22 meters so we had to consider other installations.
In view of the above I can certify that Abacus base hinged towers are long lasting and durable towers,installation efficient towers and with very low maintenance.