Electric chain hoists/carriages

Gentlemen,

I have a neighbour friend who all his life has worked as a farm labourer, ran his own mini digger business and restored vintage tractors, unfortunately over the last year he has lost both of his legs one below the knee and the other above and is now restricted to a wheel chair or his mobility scooter. I have slowly got him interested in my hobby, stationary engine restoration, and he is picking his life up slowly but is unable to do anything at floor level so another friend and I have built benches at an easier height etc which he can work at from his scooter, our next problem is to get the engine from the floor so we are looking for an electric hoist, easy enough and an electric carriage, not so easy. Everything I look at is industrial i.e. nothing single phase and to big, the A frame I can build myself, has anybody bought or know of single phase carriages.

Thanks,

Martin P

250kg single phase in 110v or 230v available here

**LINK**

Martin C

Martin

Most likely you will end up having to build something. An electric mobility scooter or wheel chair looks to be a good source of the major components. If YouTube can be believed folk have built successful fork lift trucks and mobile cranes on such chassis. Maybe be inspired by something like this :- **LINK**.

Clive.

Gentlemen,

Thanks for your suggestions, the hoist is not a problem its the single phase carriage I cant find, re the forklift, we have a two ton forklift on site, he cant use it because he cant get on it, the video is interesting but to lift the engines would require a large counter balance and getting on or of it would not be practical.

Martin P

Could you not add a couple of pullies either end of the gantry and use a second cheap barrow hoist with a looped cable to move the carrage from side to side

Jason,

Thats an idea that i've considered but because he has no legs he doesnt have natural stabilisers and he has already come close to pulling himself out of his scooter through loss of balance plus the inertia of the load compounds the problem.

Martin P

I haven't investigated fully myself but.... could you use a modified electric garage door motor/drive unit to move your hoist along it's support rail?

I have recently bought a Clarke 1 ton beam trolley (manual not electric) and was very impressed with it. Even overloaded by 50% (the machine was 2 inches off the ground) it was surprisingly easy to pull along. It might be worth getting one of these and seeing how you go. If it is impractical then rigging an arrangement similar to a curtain opening system would not be too difficult.

Regards.

David.

What weight do you wish to lift? Tracked disability systems can lift 200Kg and be power traversed. Fit a section of ceiling track to your A frame.

http://freewaylifts.co.uk/ceiling-hoists/ceiling-track-hoists/

For lifting the 8" chucks for my lathe I built and installed a hoist using the motor from a garage door opener, its a 36 V motor, but I have a 18 V supply in the workshop, and it works(slowly) on that. It moves on a rail over both ends of the lathe so I can lift from either end. The rail is made up from 2 bits of angle iron (old bed frame), welded back to back, the rollers are four 1 1/2" ball races. It looks rough, but it works, and just made from stuff out of the junk box.

The lifting hook is on the R/H fall of chain, the chain on the L/H is the surplus tail just hung up out of the way.

I have thought about designing a method of power operating the movement back and forth along the rail, --maybe, one day.

Ian S C

Edited By Ian S C on 19/10/2017 13:00:24

What about a chain operated carriage llke this?

**LINK**

Martin C

Gentlemen,

Thanks for suggestions, weight to be lifted could be up to 400Kgs, making something is something that I would rather not do as he does go to his shed on his own and my conscience wouldn't last if he had an accident due to my calculations particularly if he was on his own. I know bought stuff can fail but its been tried and tested.