MCW-100 brochure: automatic swing door operator

The MCW-100 is the swing door operator MC Automations supplies, installs and services across South Africa. Like the MC-125, it is imported and assembled locally at our Laser Park premises. This MCW-100 brochure carries the specification exactly as it appears in the operator documentation we hold. Where a figure is not listed, it is because we do not hold it in writing — ask, and we will confirm it in writing before you specify it.

How to use this MCW-100 brochure

The specification block below is the part most people need, but it comes with a caveat that matters more here than on a sliding operator: door width and weight are interdependent, and the stated limits were tested without wind pressure. A 1200 mm leaf at 150 kg is not a combination you can simply read off the table and order. If you are writing a tender, quote the figures with that caveat attached.

Use the print button at the top of this MCW-100 brochure to produce a clean PDF. The print layout strips navigation, buttons and pop-ups, leaving the specification and diagrams on their own.

What the MCW-100 is built to do

A swing door operator automates a door that is hinged rather than sliding. That sounds like a smaller job than a sliding entrance, and mechanically it is, but it introduces a problem a sliding door does not have: the leaf sweeps through space that people occupy. Everything about how a swing operator is specified and set up follows from that.

The MCW-100 drives a single or double hinged door using either a pull-arm or a push-arm, depending on which face of the door the operator sits on. It runs a 55 W brushless DC motor from an AC 100–240 V input, and provides a 24 V DC control supply for the sensors and any access control tied into it. The operator itself is compact — 475 × 81 × 98 mm and 5.5 kg — which is why it suits existing doorways where there is no room for a sliding installation.

Where the MCW-100 is specified

The MCW-100 is used on office and reception doors, clinic and healthcare doors, retail store entrances, apartment building entrances, controlled and staff doors, and accessible entrances. The common thread is an opening that has to swing rather than slide — either because there is no wall space for a sliding leaf to stack into, or because the door has to hold a rating a sliding leaf cannot.

MCW-100 or MC-125: which operator suits the opening

The two operators are not interchangeable and the choice is made by the door. Sliding suits a wide opening with wall space beside it and steady two-way traffic; it moves more people faster and sweeps no arc. Swinging suits an opening with no stacking space, a door that must carry a fire or acoustic rating, or a single-leaf doorway where a sliding installation would be disproportionate.

Where an opening could take either, traffic usually decides. A swing leaf has to sweep clear before the next person can pass, so on a busy entrance it becomes the bottleneck. Full figures for the sliding operator sit in the MC-125 brochure, and both operators are imported and assembled locally on the same basis, carry the same two-year warranty and share the same spares position in Johannesburg.

Installation and site readiness

The operator is 5.5 kg and mounts above the door, so the frame or header has to be able to carry it and the reaction loads the arm applies each cycle. On a masonry frame this is rarely an issue. On a light partition head, or a frame that was never designed to take a powered device, it needs checking before anything is ordered.

Protection class is IP21, which is a meaningful constraint: the MCW-100 is protected against fingers and dripping water, not against wind-driven rain or wash-down. It is an internal or sheltered-external device. An unsheltered external doorway on a weather face is not a suitable location, and specifying one there is a warranty problem waiting to happen.

Power should be terminated where the operator will sit, within the AC 100–240 V input range. Because the operator provides its own 24 V DC control supply, the sensors and any access control interface can usually be fed from it rather than needing a separate supply — but those cables still need to be pulled before the head is closed up and finished.

Automatic entrances in South African buildings are designed against the SANS 10400 series supporting the National Building Regulations; copies are published by the South African Bureau of Standards. We will tell you which requirements apply to your opening, and we do not publish a certification claim we cannot evidence.

What this MCW-100 brochure does not claim

• The weight and width limits are not simultaneous maxima and were tested without wind pressure. Treat them as the outer edge of an envelope confirmed by assessment, not as an order form.
• The one million cycle figure is a service-life test result — not a guarantee of a million trouble-free operations, not a maintenance-free period, not a warranty term.
• No certification or third-party approval is claimed anywhere in this MCW-100 brochure. Where a project needs evidence against a standard, ask and we will tell you what documentation exists.
• IP21 is an indoor or sheltered rating. Any figure absent from the table is absent because we do not hold it in writing.

Double doors, and why sequencing matters

The MCW-100 is configured for single or double doors. On a double-leaf opening each leaf gets its own operator, and the two have to be coordinated rather than simply switched on together. Where the leaves overlap at the meeting stile, one has to lead on opening and trail on closing, or the doors will collide at the centre. That coordination is set up on commissioning and is one of the things worth checking on a service visit, because a double set that has drifted out of sequence will start catching at the meeting stile long before anything actually fails.

A double opening also doubles the swept area the safety devices have to cover, and the two swept arcs meet in the middle. A person standing centrally in front of a double swing door is in the path of both leaves at once, which is why presence detection on a double set is specified as a covered zone rather than as two independent sensors that each happen to work.

Accessibility, and why hold-open time is 20 seconds

The hold-open range on this operator is 0 to 20 seconds, against 0 to 8 on the sliding operator. That difference is deliberate and it is the main reason the MCW-100 turns up on accessible entrances. Somebody using a walking frame, pushing a wheelchair or managing a child and a bag needs materially longer to clear a doorway than an unencumbered adult, and a door that starts closing while they are still in it is both a safety problem and a dignity problem.

Opening time is the other half of it. At 3 to 7 seconds per 90 degrees, the operator can be set to open deliberately rather than quickly. A slow, predictable sweep is easier to judge and step around than a fast one, and on an accessible door the slower setting is usually the correct one even though the hardware will happily run faster. Where the entrance also has a push button or a proximity plate, its position matters as much as the timing: a button mounted inside the swept area puts the user in the path of the leaf they just called.

MCW-100 brochure: terms used above

• Push-arm — the operator sits on the face the door opens away from and pushes the leaf open.
• Pull-arm — the operator sits on the face the door opens toward and pulls the leaf open.
• Sweep zone — the area the moving leaf passes through. Presence here must stop the door.
• Push-and-go — a manual push starts the motor, which then completes the opening.
• Hold-open time — how long the leaf stays open once activation clears; 0 to 20 seconds on this operator.
• IP21 — protected against fingers and dripping water. An indoor or sheltered rating, not a weatherproof one.
• Service-life test — a test-condition result quoted here as 1 000 000 cycles; not a maintenance interval and not a warranty term.

Service, spares and warranty

The MCW-100 carries a two-year warranty. Because it is imported and assembled locally, spares are held in Johannesburg and a technician arrives with the part that fits the fault rather than a diagnosis and a second visit. On a swing operator the items that drift are the arm fixings and the safety sensors covering the sweep path; both are checked on every service visit, and intervals are set against the cycles the door actually carries rather than a calendar.

MCW-100 brochure: frequently asked

The MCW-100 brochure at a glance

Questions we are asked about the MCW-100 brochure