Hi Steve: The wall bracket that the two top pulleys are attached to is just a heavy duty 90 degree bracket from our local hardware store. The wall bracket that the hand winch is attached to is a piece of metal I had at home from another project. I bent it to 90 degrees using my bench vice and an big hammer and then cut it to fit the winch base using a cutting blade on my angle grinder. ET
Great video Ed! Does your cable ever get snagged between the pulley frame and wheeling? I'm trying to fix a pulley system for my tandem kayak AND need to make a new system for a roof top tent I just bought.
Hi Thomas. My cable has never gotten pinched between the pulley frame and the pulley wheel. My pulleys don't have much of a gap between the frame and wheel so there really isn't room for the cable to get pinched.
I would not store the handle there, but invert it back so the handle faces the wall. That way if the lock does get bumped it will only fall one revolution until the handle hits the cable. The way you have it it will fall to the ground or to your garage door.
OK. I tried to flip the handle around but it won't work for me. My crank handle has an "S" bend in it which prevents me from turning it over. Great idea though!
Great video Ed. Im planning on doing the same setup in my garage, approximately how much cable would you say you used per side? my garage is almost identical to yours such as height, length to wall etc.
Great question. You need more cable than you think! I used one piece that was 100 feet long and then folded it in half where I connected it to the hand crank. This equates to 50 feet per side but even at that I can't lower my canopy right to the floor as my cables are not long enough!! Here is how to calculate the length you need: 1) Measure the distance from the hand crank to the ceiling where your double pulleys are mounted. For me this is about 8 feet. 2) Measure the distance from the double pulley to the mid point of where your canopy will hang from the ceiling. This is the lift point. For me this is about 15 feet. 3) Measure the distance from your ceiling to the floor assuming you want the option to lower your canopy to the floor. Or just from the ceiling to the height of your truck box if you just plan on lowering the canopy to your truck, not the floor. For me this is about 8 feet as I only lower to my truck height, not the floor. For this distance you have to multiply by four as you actually have 4 lengths of cable coming from the pulley setup. 4) Total length for one side is: 8 + 15 + (8 * 4) = 55 feet. Double this as you have two sides to do which brings you to 110 feet! I used 100 feet and as I said, it was too short! Have a great day Robert.
The bracket at the top back of the room, holding the two pulleys, I think that may be your weakest spot, all of the weight is pulling out and down on that one or two bolts. you may want to expand a bar across multi studs in your wall to share the weight.
Good observation Dale. The two pulleys are lag bolted to a 2x6 behind the gyproc but it would be much stronger to spread the weight across multiple studs. When I take the canopy off my truck for the summer I will have a good look at those pulleys and if there are any signs of movement I will take your advice.
Hi Dale: This weekend I took a look at the double pulley bracket you mentioned and while it seemed OK, I decided to make it better as you suggested. Unfortunately my studs are on 24 inch centers so I would have to use a 48 inch board in order to cross studs. I didn't want to do this so instead I used a 12" piece of angle iron and moved the pulley mount up to the top of the wall where the wall and ceiling meet. There is a 2X6 plate at the top of the wall so I used 4 lag bolts to secure the angle iron to the plate and then mounted the two pulleys on the angle iron in a similar way to how they were mounted before on the L-bracket. This made a very sturdy mount so I am no longer concerned that the double pulley mount is a weak point. Thanks for the suggestion...have a great day. ET
Hi Joni: I gave a fairly detailed parts list to Matt Osterman about 2 years ago. You can see my list if you view my first video, see link above, and then look down the comments list until you find Matt. Read all of the comments between Matt and I as this is where you will find the parts list. Have a great day Joni. ET
Great idea. I saw another video of a guy doing just that to lift his canopy. It makes me a bit nervous though. My crank has a ratchet when you are lifting the canopy so at any time if I let go of the crank handle nothing happens as the ratchet prevents the spool from turning backwards...however, when I am lowering the canopy there is no ratchet setting, the spool just free-wheels. So, if I were to let go of the crank handle then the canopy would fall and the crank handle would spin out of control. This was mentioned by another viewer who commented on my video. I am pretty careful when I am lifting and lowering my canopy so I tend to crank slowly. If I used a drill just to lift the canopy that would be safe and then I would use the crank to lower it. Thanks for your feedback.
Hi Mark. The winch is just a basic "Hand Winch". If you do a Google search for "hand winch" you will see lots of them from different places like Canadian Tire, Lowes, Amazon, etc.. The one I used is called a Rhino Winch and I got it at a store called Princess Auto. I bought a winch that is way stronger than I needed as it was the only way to get one with a large enough spool to hold all of the cable. Ed
Great idea, utilization of wasted space above the garage door! Thank you for sharing!
Weld a nut in place of that wingnut and you can use a power drill or impact drill to crank it up
Thanks for the post. To lift I'd use a socket on a impact driver. Now i have to go build mine.
Great video! Did you have the wall bracket for your crank/spool fabricated, or is it available to buy?
Hi Steve: The wall bracket that the two top pulleys are attached to is just a heavy duty 90 degree bracket from our local hardware store. The wall bracket that the hand winch is attached to is a piece of metal I had at home from another project. I bent it to 90 degrees using my bench vice and an big hammer and then cut it to fit the winch base using a cutting blade on my angle grinder. ET
Great video Ed! Does your cable ever get snagged between the pulley frame and wheeling? I'm trying to fix a pulley system for my tandem kayak AND need to make a new system for a roof top tent I just bought.
Hi Thomas. My cable has never gotten pinched between the pulley frame and the pulley wheel. My pulleys don't have much of a gap between the frame and wheel so there really isn't room for the cable to get pinched.
Thanks for the update man. Going to do something similar.
A winch is a good idea and if I had one I might have tried it.
I would not store the handle there, but invert it back so the handle faces the wall. That way if the lock does get bumped it will only fall one revolution until the handle hits the cable. The way you have it it will fall to the ground or to your garage door.
Smart idea Kevin! It would be a good safety net to flip the handle around. I will try it when I get home after work today. Thanks for the comment.
OK. I tried to flip the handle around but it won't work for me. My crank handle has an "S" bend in it which prevents me from turning it over. Great idea though!
Great video Ed. Im planning on doing the same setup in my garage, approximately how much cable would you say you used per side? my garage is almost identical to yours such as height, length to wall etc.
Great question. You need more cable than you think! I used one piece that was 100 feet long and then folded it in half where I connected it to the hand crank. This equates to 50 feet per side but even at that I can't lower my canopy right to the floor as my cables are not long enough!! Here is how to calculate the length you need:
1) Measure the distance from the hand crank to the ceiling where your double pulleys are mounted. For me this is about 8 feet.
2) Measure the distance from the double pulley to the mid point of where your canopy will hang from the ceiling. This is the lift point. For me this is about 15 feet.
3) Measure the distance from your ceiling to the floor assuming you want the option to lower your canopy to the floor. Or just from the ceiling to the height of your truck box if you just plan on lowering the canopy to your truck, not the floor. For me this is about 8 feet as I only lower to my truck height, not the floor. For this distance you have to multiply by four as you actually have 4 lengths of cable coming from the pulley setup.
4) Total length for one side is: 8 + 15 + (8 * 4) = 55 feet. Double this as you have two sides to do which brings you to 110 feet!
I used 100 feet and as I said, it was too short!
Have a great day Robert.
Ed Tandy Sounds good. Thanks for the reply and sharing your idea!
The bracket at the top back of the room, holding the two pulleys, I think that may be your weakest spot, all of the weight is pulling out and down on that one or two bolts. you may want to expand a bar across multi studs in your wall to share the weight.
Good observation Dale. The two pulleys are lag bolted to a 2x6 behind the gyproc but it would be much stronger to spread the weight across multiple studs. When I take the canopy off my truck for the summer I will have a good look at those pulleys and if there are any signs of movement I will take your advice.
Hi Dale: This weekend I took a look at the double pulley bracket you mentioned and while it seemed OK, I decided to make it better as you suggested. Unfortunately my studs are on 24 inch centers so I would have to use a 48 inch board in order to cross studs. I didn't want to do this so instead I used a 12" piece of angle iron and moved the pulley mount up to the top of the wall where the wall and ceiling meet. There is a 2X6 plate at the top of the wall so I used 4 lag bolts to secure the angle iron to the plate and then mounted the two pulleys on the angle iron in a similar way to how they were mounted before on the L-bracket. This made a very sturdy mount so I am no longer concerned that the double pulley mount is a weak point. Thanks for the suggestion...have a great day. ET
Hello thank you for sharing,.
Would you mind telling us all the part you used and where to get them please,? Thank you much. 👍🏼
Hi Joni: I gave a fairly detailed parts list to Matt Osterman about 2 years ago. You can see my list if you view my first video, see link above, and then look down the comments list until you find Matt. Read all of the comments between Matt and I as this is where you will find the parts list. Have a great day Joni. ET
Thank you so much for getting back with that information.
You could weld a nut to the handle shaft so you could use a drill to raise and lower the canopy instead of having to crank it. Just a suggestion.
Great idea. I saw another video of a guy doing just that to lift his canopy. It makes me a bit nervous though. My crank has a ratchet when you are lifting the canopy so at any time if I let go of the crank handle nothing happens as the ratchet prevents the spool from turning backwards...however, when I am lowering the canopy there is no ratchet setting, the spool just free-wheels. So, if I were to let go of the crank handle then the canopy would fall and the crank handle would spin out of control. This was mentioned by another viewer who commented on my video. I am pretty careful when I am lifting and lowering my canopy so I tend to crank slowly. If I used a drill just to lift the canopy that would be safe and then I would use the crank to lower it. Thanks for your feedback.
Oh yeah forgot the clicker is free when going down. But yeah you could do both.
Can you share the details of the winch?
Hi Mark. The winch is just a basic "Hand Winch". If you do a Google search for "hand winch" you will see lots of them from different places like Canadian Tire, Lowes, Amazon, etc.. The one I used is called a Rhino Winch and I got it at a store called Princess Auto. I bought a winch that is way stronger than I needed as it was the only way to get one with a large enough spool to hold all of the cable. Ed