Every week a customer asks us for a cabin a little larger than the standard — and we are happy to build it; we make the cabin ourselves. But the floor decides how many people walk in, and the machine decides how many it can carry. If the floor grows and the machine does not, the lift is overloaded on its busiest day. Here is the rule, the numbers, and a calculator you can try with your own size.
Nothing here is Cube's opinion. It is how every passenger lift in India is designed, whichever brand builds it.
IS 14665 rates a "10-passenger" lift at 10 × 68 = 680 kg. Real people are heavier — many of us are 80, 90, 100 kg. So the safety margin is already being used up by ordinary passengers.
The code allows roughly 1.8 to 2.0 sq ft (0.17–0.18 m²) of floor per passenger. Give 10 people's machine a 13 people's floor and, on a wedding day, 13 people will walk in. Nobody counts.
It stops the lift at about +10 % over the rated load — an electrical block, not a physical one. Well beyond that, on a traction lift the counterweight no longer balances the car and the car can slip. Look up any lift accident: it is nearly always overload.
Rated load in kg, the biggest floor the code allows for that load, and the standard car size — in mm, metres and square feet.
| Capacity | Rated load | Max cabin floor for this machine | Standard car size (inside) | Floor per passenger |
|---|
Maximum floor is derived from the code's load formula (below); standard car sizes are the IS 14665 Part 1 outline dimensions. Final Cube drawings govern.
W = minimum rated load in kg. A = net inside cabin floor in m². Put any floor in and the code tells you the smallest machine allowed for it.
Worked example — a standard 10 P cabin: 1350 × 1300 mm = 1.76 m² = 18.9 sq ft. Formula → 679 kg. Exactly the 680 kg machine. ✓
The same cabin, "a little bigger": 1400 × 1400 mm = 1.96 m² = 21.1 sq ft. Formula → 773 kg. That is 12 passengers × 68 kg — beyond a 680 kg machine. So we build the cabin you want — and fit the machine, V3F drive, ropes and brake rated for it. That is what "increase the machine and drive" means.
Try your own numbers in the calculator below — the chart under it moves with you.
Type any inside cabin size. See the floor in m² and sq ft, how many people it can physically hold, and the machine the code demands for it.
Inside clear dimensions, wall to wall.
This chart follows the calculator above. The gold dots are the standard capacities. The green or red dot is your cabin — where it sits against the machine you were quoted.
A bigger cabin is a better lift — more room, better look and feel. We are for it. We just size the whole machine to the floor, not only the box.
Built to your size in our Balanagar factory. Bigger cabin ≈ small cost.
Gearless machine and V3F drive stepped up to the next rated load the formula asks for.
All re-selected for the higher load. The counterweight is re-balanced so the car never out-weighs it.
Set to the new rated load, so the sensor and the machine agree — and the plate on the wall says the true number.
This is why a small cabin is never about saving Cube money — enlarging a cabin barely changes our cost. Upsizing the machine does. Indicative figures; your quotation governs.
Sheet, cutting, bending — we make it ourselves, so growing the box is the small part.
Next-size gearless machine, drive, ropes and brake.
for every 2-passenger step — cabin and machine together, rounded. 8 P → 10 P, or 10 P → the 11-passenger class.
Which is why, when a customer says "give me a bigger cabin on the same machine", we say no — not to keep the money, but because the honest bigger cabin costs ₹75,000 more, and the dishonest one costs someone their safety.
Shaft space is not the limit — the machine is. The cap is on the cabin floor, because floor decides how many walk in. Spare shaft space is a good reason to go up one capacity, not to over-size the box.
It stops the lift at about +10 %. If the floor lets three extra people in, that is +200 kg — far past what the sensor is meant to guard. Then it is down to the balance of a machine that was never rated for it.
Look inside any mall or hospital lift. No multinational ever gives more floor than the machine is rated for — the same code binds them, and they have engineers who will not sign it. Where they give more room, they fit the bigger machine and charge for it. If a local lift company offers a bigger cabin on the same machine, it can only mean nobody with an engineering degree checked the drawing.
Pick the cabin you want. We will tell you the machine it needs, in kg and in rupees. You get the room and the look — and a lift whose plate on the wall tells the truth about what it can carry.