Like myself, looks like you are alone most of the time.. I spent most of a lifetime figuring out how to do things by myself when I needed another set of hands....Great Job! Cheers. Mike in Louisiana (Ramsay 1)
I have a similar gantry with an electric 1 ton host I installed along with a power outlet mounted to one of the uprights.. I went to tractor supply and got 2 110v winches, mounted them to the sides of the gantry and attached the original lifting cables directly to the winches themselves, wired the winches into push button switches which I mounted above the electrical outlets and it works great. Yeah it cost me a lot over 300 bucks but I can adjust it full up to all the way down in less then a minute.
I'm trying to picture how you did this. I assume this is "pulling itself up by its bootstraps" so to speak lol. Where are the two 110v winches mounted and how do you keep the electric hoist centered when doing this? How do you raise the height and how do you lower the height? And how powerful / rated are the winches? I really want to do this.
Well the safety sallys had fun with this one. We know there will be improvements as needed, this video is more research and development than final assembly. Thumbs up on this one. This is why we watch.
Not sure if you have ever witnessed an industrial accident or worse ... had to clean up after one ... I have BTW and it ain't pretty nor fun. Not wanting to see anyone get hurt shouldn't be dismissed. Having said that .. before lowering the jack the free pin should be placed in the next hole up. If for some reason Keith lost control of the valve on the jack, the inner tube could have slammed all the way down.
It's always easy to criticize a finished project, so please don't take this a negative on Kieth's solution. But I think there might be a more effective way of dealing with this for anyone dealing with the same problem. You can do this with a single trailer winch. Mount the winch on the inside face of the A-frame with the strap exiting downward. Run the strap under the post via a pulley, back up the outside of the post, over the I-beam with pulleys at the corners, back down to the bottom of the other post, wrapping around a final pulley under the post and back up to the inside face of the A-frame opposite the side you started. That way you lift or lower both sides at the same time with a single winch. I have a similar setup for lifting the table on a hydraulic press I built and it works great. The only issue I can see with doing it on this big crane is that for every foot of lift you need to recover 4ft of strap to the winch. Which on one side is nice because it gives you a force multiplication, but if the posts have 10 ft of travel you would need a which capable of holding 40ft of strap.
We just use a come-along (hand operated ratchet winch) on each side. You can take either side all the way up or all the way down in one shot, they are a heckuva lot cheaper than jack cylinders, and need no brackets. Great to have a gantry in the shop if you have the headroom!
I was thinking along the same lines. With 4 parts of line, and a uniform lift, you eliminate most of the tendency for the A-frames to can't to the sides, reducing the risk to the operator. A picier setup would be to use two hydraulic rams driven in parallel from a central pressurizing ram and reservoir, similar to an auto mechanic's lift - which typically uses compressed air over oil. You have some pricy hydraulic tubing in such a setup as well, but there are reasons why modern power equipment uses hyudraulics instead of cable systems. I still wouldn't want to use any such setup to lift a load without doing a very careful design , with safety features such as ratcheting pawls to limit the load's ability to drop any distance, and wheel locks/chocks to hold the entire frame stationary.
@@chemech I don't think there is really any harm in lifting it unevenly. Like others, I'd like to see the hoists not slamming back and forth, but a little tag line fixes that.
Trouble is, that takes away from the working width inside the frame. If we assume that a winch handle is, what, 10"-12" long then that requires the winch axle to be off-set from the actual frame by a minimum of 6"-7" to allow for the handle swing, let alone the extra dimensions presented by the winch body itself. All very well if you're working in a wide, manoeuvrable space but if you gotta get in tight somewhere then problems are foreseeable. You also gotta take into account the item you're shifting. A slung load will ALWAYS swing, there's no avoiding it. Especially if you're moving it solo. You'll get movement Back & Forth if you're moving it in a straight line - a two-man job tbh - but as soon as you move off-centre that slung lump of metal will be all over the place. As Keith's a one-man-band he must needs push one side then the other so he sets up instant momentum in the slung item. An inside winch, therefore, is in danger of being damaged as well.
Keith, A number of years ago, I can't remember why or where I visited a tug with a raised wheelhouse. The support structure that held the wheelhouse aloft had a large open space on the inside. The crew fabricated their own elevator so they could ride up to the wheelhouse without having to climb the outside ladder. The elevator wss large enough to carry two people if they were small or only one if they were our size. What was different from any elevator I have ever seen and which you may find of use was the mechanism for raising and lowering the car. Instead of using pulleys, counterweigts, or hydraulic cylinders, they used an acme threaded shaft fitted with a bearing on one end and a reversible motor on the other. The car had a threaded sleeve attached to the side. Like the screw that drives the carriage on a lathe or moves the jaw on a vise, the car was raised and lowered by turning the threaded shaft. If fitted on your gantry by using a screw and motor on each side you could raise and lower your gantry using electric power. I was amazed by the simplicity of the application. I realize it is too late for your gantry. But, it is worth considering if you have a need to raise something in the future. I should mention, the regulatory agencies had no requirements for inspection of the tug's elevator. My guess is the tug and it's elevator are still in operation. Another thought, like the traveler used on a sailboat for adjusting the boom for trimming the mainsail you could use a set of blocks and cleats to move your chain fall from side to side. If tou attached a line to each side of the traveler to a block at the sides of the gantry and then down to a cleat. This can also be done with a small winch and blocks in what amounts to a loop. Bob
Keith, they make an electric trailer tongue jack that has 3500 pound capacity and 22 inches of travel. They cost about $110.00 on Amazon and run on twelve volts. You could wire a switch anywhere you like and could control both sides with the switches located beside each other. I know everybody has a different way of doing things and they think things should be done the way they want, but this is a comment section for throwing different ideas around. That gantry crane is a real handy tool to have!
I appreciate that you’re not made of money, and I thank you for sharing all your very interesting projects with us. On this one, though, you went to a lot of effort to make something 20% better, instead of committing just 10% more investment to make it 90% better. If you had used pneumatic cylinders you could lift both sides simultaneously. Put in a metering valve to balance to movement on each side. Then when you need to raise or lower it, you just hook up your air supply, remove the pins, and push a button to move both sides at once. It’s easy to be an armchair quarterback, though. Thanks for sharing.
I put a 2 foot long piece of 1/2” pipe in my hydraulic press for the pump handle. I drilled and pinned it in place. No more dropped handles. I’ll post a picture when I get back to my shop. Thanks for the valve handle tip. Thanks, John
Kieth I don't know if it has been mentioned but instead of pumping the ram up you can pull it by hand. I do this on my engine hoist all the time to get it quickly into position. Great project, thank you for the inspiration.
I am amazed at the size of your gantry crane. I would love to have one that size along with a building to use it in. I noticed everyone and their brother has suggestions and I want to offer mine. Mounting a length of all thread to so there is a nut on the bottom of the upper beam and a bearing point at the bottom of the A Frames. The thread would be enclosed inside of the uprights to keep it clean and protected. When the all thread is turned it would raise or lower the upper beam. Off set the mounting of the nut and bearing point so it clears the pin. Powered or hand operated it would allow the beams to be raised or lowered completely without having to do more than remove the pin and crank the thread.
Great idea and great work. When you were discussing the original problem I imagined a wireless winch mounted to your ceiling. I thought you might just hook the winch cable to the top cross bar, and winch up and down from the safety of the ground. I guess you needed a portable solution. I appreciate your work and your channel. Thanks for posting.
Great job Keith you could use a single pump on the rams ,just have to plumb it into where the small pump on the side is and run the line over the top to the other side. The value you lower the ram down with needs to be blocked off as it returns the oil back into the outer case . Using the hand pump with a larger tank to hold the oil you requite . You can buy just the pump and build a tank to hold the oil. To make it easy use a hydraulic tipper used on small trucks and trailers that have a 12volt system.
We cut out a daisy shaped handle, drilled a center hole, welded in a 1/2" piece of rod, drilled the rod the same diameter as the release valve, drove the roll pin out of the release valve, cross drilled the rod to line up with the hole in the release valve, attached the handle and then drove the roll pin back in. We got a cute little handle that won't come loose and didn't have to make a trip to town.
A ram system for lifting the cab on a old cab-over truck would work perfectly for that application... They have 2 long reach hydraulic rams with one remote pump controller.
At that point, you would need some way of adjusting the cylinders since you have no way to make sure they extend or retract equally... You would need some method of making sure each side went up the same distance. On a truck, the cab acts as a cube, and keeps it straight on the hinges. This hoist frame would lean one way or another since the seals of one cylinder will always have more friction than the other...
True, the one with least resistance would always be ahead of the other. But there is a proportioning valve in the pump body that is supposed to keep the hydraulic cylinders at an even lift rate, I think that the weight of that cross beam would be plenty enough to keep the proportioning valve working as it should.
However, there's nowhere to run the piping system for such a set-up . . . It's a Gantry Crane where the work-space is between the frames and there's no permanent cross-piece to fix to.
VERY useful. Another possibility is to attach a sheave at the bottom of each column that needs to be raised. Then attach the end of a steel cable to the top of the A-frame on one side, run the cable down around the column sheave, up over a stationary sheave on top of the horizontal I-beam to another stationary sheave at the other end of the I-beam, down around the other column sheave, back up around a stationary sheave on the A-frame and back down to a hand winch attached within easy reach on one leg of the A-frame. Preferably, the winch should be a worm drive but winches with a built in automatic brake are also available. This sheave arrangement provides a 2:1 mechanical advantage added to that of the winch and would allow one to raise or lower both sides equally at the same time.
@Keith Rucker 2 trailer hand crank winches one on each side with the cable attached to the bottom of the uprights and the winches attached to where the bottom of the rams you have now would have been less than 1/2 the cost of 1 of those rams and you wouldn't spent 10 hours pumping those jacks each time
I was going to say the same thing; a boat type winch, two cables and some pulleys. You could raise and lower both sides in sync, full travel. Not unlike what some hydraulic presses have.
@@marks5603 the problem with only 1 winch and 2 cables is the loop that has to go over the top has to be mounted on something that dose not move so it can act on the part that dose move at first i thought the same thing 1 winch 2 cables but i did a rough mock up in a CAD and it carnt work
Or just use the available chain blocks... with a pulley on the bottom of the upprights.. and connect the hook to the top of the a frame.. :) (maybe the chain has to be extended by wire)
With this basic design (which I probably would not have used, but others have already suggested myriad other designs), rather than welding the lower bracket to the gantry crane, I would have made it clamp over the existing cross-brace. Then there would be no worries about the modifications weakening the crane in any way, nor would the warranty be voided. You could also remove the accessory completely if it would be in the way.
Like insurance companies that deny coverage if possible, with the way some companies honor warranties, just painting it a different color might void it. The color identifies it as their gantry regardless of stickers on it. I've never had to collect on any warranty. The product always broke after the warranty period.
Since today is comment day I will have to give you the best one I think, buy some land next to me, redo a new shop and house, you will have the extra set of hands because I would be there watching. Love your videos. Thanks.
valve handle: I use hydraulic jacks in a piece of equipment I build and I use a large cast wing nut from McMaster Carr. I turn the end of the valve rod round and bore out the wing nut and braze them together. Works great.
Keith, To quickly extend the ram on my engine lift and save time pumping I open the valve and lift the boom. Once past the height I need I close the valve. In your case you will simply pull the ram out. If you can swing the ram down, it would be easier to pull than trying to lift it while on a ladder.
You might put an eye on bottom of upright to hook hoist to, stopping it from running the rail. We had those on ship to stop hoists from swinging & running side-to-side.
Nice solution. I think you could put the top of the ram in the bottom welded mount, and then move movable pin below the weld. This way you shift the ram down and can use it without a ladder
I like what your doing I did the same but used air rams no hydraulics it works great> I ran air hose to both sides so I can move both sides at the same time.
A friendly bit of advice, you don't have to describe your every move. A good bit of what you're doing is self evident. A picture is worth a thousand words. Nicely done project, good design. It'll make adjusting it easier. Thanks for the video.
Not air over hydraulic but air cylinders would be an option too. However If it works that is 90% of the game. Very well built. looks like a professional built it.
Keith you could use one crank up or even electric hoist with a cable going over the top like some shop presses have to raise or lower the work platform , no climbing, no going from side to side,
Northern tool sells 3 ton jacks with a double pump for $70. You could put a gear and bicycle chain on the release for the jack so you could operate it from the ground. Also a setup to pump the jack from the ground. Build a crankshaft that you could turn with a cordless drill or impact to pump the jack faster.
I believe if I had as much invested in equipment as you do I would go a step further and use a coordinated, pneumatic assisted jacking and de-jacking system, but to each his own. Good presentation.
Drain the oil, remove the pump and connect a air line. You can connect the two clynders together so they go up at the same time. Something light duty like this should work fine with occasional oiling.
the cylinders are designed for oil though so the seals will have more "stiction" than air counterparts. Using air on them will make them hard to control; they will stick, then suddenly pop (move) when the seal friction is overcome... then stick again.
Keith, if you would hook the loose chain hoist to side it would not slide from side to side. Also it you would like easier up to go to the next hole you could either pull on the ram and it will draw oil out of the reservoir through the jack. or pressurize the reservoir the fill plug with about 5 psi of air pressure.
Really?! You're way too polite which doesn't help Keith. It's unsafe and he doesn't need to fall off the ladder and break a hip or become permanently crippled by breaking his ankle or cracking his skull on the floor. Say the obvious, it's time to start over and not get stuck in the Concorde Sunk Cost Fallacy, i.e., I can't change the design, I've spent all this time and money, I can't turn back now. As it now exists, this will be a runner-up for the 2019 award for the least overall improvement in function and safety. It's time to regroup and consider a simple cable system using a hand crank on one side while standing on the floor! (Maybe he could mockup a full scale or smaller wooden model to test his new design first. Keith has a nice wood shop.)
@@jimbeaver3426 There are many ways to do any one task. Keith had a plan, executed it and it works for him. He did not get hurt, he has thought out the safe practice's and he does not do this often. I worked in one of the most dangerous industries there is and have seen many sketchy setups, this one is not even close to that. I do think there are way to make this safer and easier to operate from the floor. I do support Keith in is YT endeavors, I know Keith and call him my friend and I am the last person to want to see Keith get hurt. If he follows his safety practices with this I think he will be fine. He does need to have a gusset the base of the cylinder.
Those air over hydraulic jacks are over at Harbor Freight for around a hundred bucks and on sale or with coupons less. Not sure but I believe they had a smaller one 2-4 ton? Always had good success with their hydraulics. Nice project. Take care. Doug
Hi Keith, I sure love your vids. Learning a lot about machining in general. Also enjoy the vids having to do with the Vulcan loco. Northern Calif had a whole slew of narrow gauge logging operations back in the day. Got most of the DVD's on them. Seemed dangerous working on them in those days b4 OSHA and FRA regs. Safety always seemed less important than getting the logs to the mill which ever way was the fastest. They had a lot of accidents. I also have a Vulcan, Harbor Freight Vulcan ProTIG 200. Excellent machine. I also grabbed an Everlast MTS211Si multi-process welder, and I love my Hypertherm 30XP plasma cutter. Kinda wished I got the 45XP, but couldn't afford it at the time. Great machines, but a little pricey. Wish I had your shop, what a beauty that is. The cat seems to like it too, LOL. Take care and stay safe with all this COVID19 stuff. I'll be glad when things get back to normal. I just hope it doesn't bankrupt the US first. Cheers!
Use a porta-power jack hookup to those cylinders. Can plumb both cylinders into one line, can easily "mount" the "jack" to the side of the frame of the crane. The issue of using air is, unless you have a sensitive control valve, it's either going to be full open, shooting the cylinders upward out of control. Don't have an issue with what you've done like a few other comments seem to be having. Just saying, it's a bit easier with long reach cylinders tied together plumbed to a porta-power jack system. Cheers :)
If you bolt a metal ruler to your cutoff saw, right of the blade, behind the work in line with the rear vise jaw, you can read off piece length directly without marking.
Keith, if you happened to have some kind of hydraulic pump around the shop you could use quick disconnects and two regular cylinders from salvage. A wrecked car hauler would be great. Thanks
When you're lowering, I'd hook the chinfall hook onto one of those straps you welded on so the chainfall doesn't come blasting over side to side and slamming into the vertical.
Keith, I would put a hoop about the level of the name on the jack to keep it from flopping outward when you have the jack pin out to move to the next hole. Keep the jack from nailing you in the head and having to hold it all the time.
Pulley on the bottom of each column- looped up over the top and a simple manual cable winch would raise and lower both sides equally while standing on the ground. Like moving the support plate a big press. Or just a piece of 4X4 laid across the forks of your forklift and under each column to move it up and down.
We need a month by month bicep measurement to keep track of this setups progress. I had a really nice 2 speed trailer winch that would have been great here. Another cool solution would be a chain pulley that plugged into the bottom of the riser tube, take winch chain through the pulley and back up to a fixed point on the leg. Use the existing chain winches to move it up and down. What you built looks really safe and great for your anaerobic health. ;-)
I Actually use the effect of an un-level make shift "scafolding gantry" to move massive boulders a few feet at a time in places where machinery nor multiple men can accomplish safely for waterfall building and moving and releveliing things like brick colums and mailboxes. I just set the Jacks an inch off and lift just till it clears and slides in the direction required.
Wow... looks like you turned a pain in the ass procedure into a pain in the ass procedure. Think I would have opted for a cable lift with a Harbor Freight Badlands winch.
Since you don't have a lot of weight to lift, perhaps long-stroke pneumatic cylinders plumbed together might be a more user-friendly option. You could pressurize and release both at a common valve. A really quick ebay search showed a 40mm (1.57") bore x 800mm (31.5") stroke cylinder in the $50-$60 range. If you can get 100 psi to those cylinder each would lift just shy of 200 lbs.
Just. A small point, where spacing is critical ALWAYS weld the INSIDE First. You can easily tap it inward after but difficult to spread outwards. ( 40 years a welder) You can add a air powered pump ( like the museums) later. PS air powered rams might not be strong enough, a 2" dia air ram on 120 psi will only lift 400 pounds.
That was a great idea and I will have to do this mod when I get my Gantry crane. The only thing I can see to be a hazard is if you forget to put the rams top retaining pin in the ram it could be a real head knocker. Nice work. 👍 🇺🇸 🗽
Nice addition to the crane. Maybe the next update can be a pin-lock for the cross-slide holding the chain pulley... drill some holes in the beam and weld a spring-loaded pin onto the cross-slide. Putting a rope on that and pulling would extract the pin from a beam hole and allow the cross-slide to move. Letting go of the rope would allow the pin to pop into the next hole it finds on the beam and lock it in position. I still think motorized drive wheels on this thing would make moving it around single-handed much easier as well... Cheers,
but as is works, he could do a slow pressure blead-off at the same time to do a level drop in a min. or so now that he has them in the top pin spot, UP is going to be where he will want to have air over, half an hour and many trips up that ladder... or in half that time running a small bar to each pump to use both at the same time.
@@progandy You are only lifting a total of maybe 500 pounds. We use cable come-alongs on each side. You do need some precision to get the pins in, so air wouldn't be as easy to work with. The come-alongs let you wiggle it up and down between ratchet pawls to get the pin in.
Nice work! An other way is to use the chainfalls on the crane to lift itself. 2 sheaves at the bottoms of the vertical columns. A steel cable dead manned to the frame, threaded under the sheaves with the other end looped onto the chainfall hooks, and you won't need a ladder at all, and the chainfalls will behave themselves. My nephew and I came up with this solution independently. Maybe somebody could operate both chain falls at the same time.
Hi Keath I DIDN'T READ all 341 comments but I was thinking you could make a bar out of pipe to fit between the two pump handles so you could jack them at the same time since your lifting a light load for the size of jack. the handles could be shortened maybe 10" or 12" inches. I know the pipe would bow with that long of a span but it would help to fill the pipe with wood dowels without adding much weight. You will still have to lower them one at a time but that's easy.
@@royreynolds108 Hi Roy, actually weld splatter will stick to either metal. If you watch the video again you can see it stuck to the square. I have welded aluminum for 27 years and always used copper for a backer, a hot weld will stick aluminum to steel, not very well but it will leave annoying marks on the steel. Fronius has a welder that can weld steel to aluminum, no idea how that works but they do it. Keep smiling Roy.
Hi Kieth I enjoy your videos greatly. I know it is easy to criticize after the fact but the thing that would have stopped me would be climbing up and down a ladder to pull pins. (As a general comment the design of the gantry could be improved - relocate the main pins lower within normal reach height.) A simpler solution would have been two threaded rods with the fixed nut on the top and with the drive end ( bottom end) mounted to the movable movable legs. Power up and down with a battery drill. The threaded rods are in tension all the time so buckling is not an issue. Requires an upper nut with some small vertical movement so that rod tension can be transferred to the pins.
Taking a page from the CNC world, you could use a pair of synchronized stepper motors running acme threaded rods attached to the sides vertically to raise and lower the whole thing at the push of a button. Probably would cost about the same if not much more than what Keith did.
Now i don't know if they make those in the double extension rams like the old car bottle jacks had. But that would be so much better for you. Wouldn't have to take the pins out at all. Maybe you should look into that? A thought....
I think with all of the good suggestions here Keith would have been better off making a video about what he wanted to do before committing to the project. That guy can weld though! Thanks Keith.
Nicely done, Keith. As an alternative, a couple of cheap hand cranked cable winches would have done the job easier, more compactly, and quicker. You could have even added a couple of pulleys and a "Y" harness and done it with a single winch so that both sides raised/lowered at the same time. I wouldn't recommend it for working under a load, but just for adjusting the beam height it would work perfectly.
It seems like a couple of pieces of all thread with nuts and some brackets, and you just stand on the ground with your impact driver and buzz each side up a little at a time, put pins in, and no jacking. Like ed norton would say, zip zip zip and it's done. Course this is best for an un-loaded situation.
Yeah there are a lot of problems which can be solved this way, with the widespread availability of cordless power tools with decent torque. I for one wish they'd sell crimpers for plumbing and large copper electrical lugs that worked this way. Could be a big cost saving for the weekend warrior who has a drill with a good gearbox or an impact driver.
I was thinking this also, with a chain connecting the rods at the top to turn both rods at the same time. And a small motor with a two way switch to turn the rods either direction. Motor could be mounted on side of top beam in the middle with shaft facing up so it wouldn't create any clearance above the lift. Heck, if you are going to engineer something, go all out!!! lol...
@@dannywilsher4165 the issue I see with any sort of connected approach is balancing. If the pinions/threaded rod/chain system isn't perfectly "aligned", the gantry will effectively be locked in a tilt where you can't put the load bearing pins in. It's less fancy, but if you just put separate allthread mechanisms on each side, you can do the same sort of method Keith does with the hydraulic Rams in this video, only no ladder and no frantic pumping of the jack, just go back and forth with an impact driver or an electric ratchet. Cheaper, easier to make, and virtually impossible to foul up.
Either would work but ball screws would be less likely to cause problems and 4 foot ballscrews would only cost £30.00 each and have a much faster 'rate' than threaded rod. I use ball screws for the same purpose in my workshop. I did try thereaded rod but it had a tendency to clog up.
Why would you do a question if you already know the answer? You already know you could use abutting from air cylinders, hydraulic cylinders, cable, threaded rod, ball screws, or anything that can create linear translations.
Andrew Delashaw, My question was could 'he' not use ball screws, NOT could I use ball screws. I do NOT know if HE could use ball screws so I do NOT know the answer. It was intended as a potentially helpful solution as the slow rate of hydraulic cylinders may become tedious. Keith can choose to ignore this advice if he wants but your comment is truly unhelpful. I did not say he 'should' have used ball screws because he may have had a good reason for not using them, it was a suggestion.
my solution would have been to put a small chain hoist somewhere on the ceiling so you can attach it to the i beam when you need to move it up and down.
@@craigsudman4556 you are right about versatility but from what he said switch from one part of the shop to another was the problem and from what i seen there is not much space form a gantry outside. anyway he could do both small chain hoist are not that expensive and it could be used for other thing.
My guess is that a guy in China is now designing a crane which uses 2 air over hydraulic long reach cylinders to raise the column which utilizes spring loaded locks which click into holes in the column as the hoist moves up- like a car hoist- this also acts as the lifting mechanism and the all that is need on the top is a simple trolley with a chain for side to side motion. Soon available from Harbor Freight as a bolt together kit for 399.00
Good on you Keith for showing how to do a safety-critical modification with an honest and fair safety warning.
Like myself, looks like you are alone most of the time.. I spent most of a lifetime figuring out how to do things by myself when I needed another set of hands....Great Job! Cheers. Mike in Louisiana (Ramsay 1)
I have a similar gantry with an electric 1 ton host I installed along with a power outlet mounted to one of the uprights.. I went to tractor supply and got 2 110v winches, mounted them to the sides of the gantry and attached the original lifting cables directly to the winches themselves, wired the winches into push button switches which I mounted above the electrical outlets and it works great. Yeah it cost me a lot over 300 bucks but I can adjust it full up to all the way down in less then a minute.
I'm trying to picture how you did this. I assume this is "pulling itself up by its bootstraps" so to speak lol. Where are the two 110v winches mounted and how do you keep the electric hoist centered when doing this? How do you raise the height and how do you lower the height? And how powerful / rated are the winches? I really want to do this.
Well the safety sallys had fun with this one. We know there will be improvements as needed, this video is more research and development than final assembly. Thumbs up on this one. This is why we watch.
Not sure if you have ever witnessed an industrial accident or worse ... had to clean up after one ... I have BTW and it ain't pretty nor fun. Not wanting to see anyone get hurt shouldn't be dismissed. Having said that .. before lowering the jack the free pin should be placed in the next hole up. If for some reason Keith lost control of the valve on the jack, the inner tube could have slammed all the way down.
@@tsmartin Have faith he will make it right, no need to beat him up .
It's always easy to criticize a finished project, so please don't take this a negative on Kieth's solution. But I think there might be a more effective way of dealing with this for anyone dealing with the same problem.
You can do this with a single trailer winch. Mount the winch on the inside face of the A-frame with the strap exiting downward. Run the strap under the post via a pulley, back up the outside of the post, over the I-beam with pulleys at the corners, back down to the bottom of the other post, wrapping around a final pulley under the post and back up to the inside face of the A-frame opposite the side you started. That way you lift or lower both sides at the same time with a single winch. I have a similar setup for lifting the table on a hydraulic press I built and it works great. The only issue I can see with doing it on this big crane is that for every foot of lift you need to recover 4ft of strap to the winch. Which on one side is nice because it gives you a force multiplication, but if the posts have 10 ft of travel you would need a which capable of holding 40ft of strap.
Great solution ! I'll bet the time to his existing setup with your winch deal would be a time saver in the long run.
We just use a come-along (hand operated ratchet winch) on each side. You can take either side all the way up or all the way down in one shot, they are a heckuva lot cheaper than jack cylinders, and need no brackets. Great to have a gantry in the shop if you have the headroom!
I was thinking along the same lines. With 4 parts of line, and a uniform lift, you eliminate most of the tendency for the A-frames to can't to the sides, reducing the risk to the operator.
A picier setup would be to use two hydraulic rams driven in parallel from a central pressurizing ram and reservoir, similar to an auto mechanic's lift - which typically uses compressed air over oil. You have some pricy hydraulic tubing in such a setup as well, but there are reasons why modern power equipment uses hyudraulics instead of cable systems.
I still wouldn't want to use any such setup to lift a load without doing a very careful design , with safety features such as ratcheting pawls to limit the load's ability to drop any distance, and wheel locks/chocks to hold the entire frame stationary.
@@chemech I don't think there is really any harm in lifting it unevenly. Like others, I'd like to see the hoists not slamming back and forth, but a little tag line fixes that.
Trouble is, that takes away from the working width inside the frame. If we assume that a winch handle is, what, 10"-12" long then that requires the winch axle to be off-set from the actual frame by a minimum of 6"-7" to allow for the handle swing, let alone the extra dimensions presented by the winch body itself.
All very well if you're working in a wide, manoeuvrable space but if you gotta get in tight somewhere then problems are foreseeable.
You also gotta take into account the item you're shifting. A slung load will ALWAYS swing, there's no avoiding it. Especially if you're moving it solo. You'll get movement Back & Forth if you're moving it in a straight line - a two-man job tbh - but as soon as you move off-centre that slung lump of metal will be all over the place. As Keith's a one-man-band he must needs push one side then the other so he sets up instant momentum in the slung item.
An inside winch, therefore, is in danger of being damaged as well.
Keith,
A number of years ago, I can't remember why or where I visited a tug with a raised wheelhouse. The support structure that held the wheelhouse aloft had a large open space on the inside. The crew fabricated their own elevator so they could ride up to the wheelhouse without having to climb the outside ladder. The elevator wss large enough to carry two people if they were small or only one if they were our size.
What was different from any elevator I have ever seen and which you may find of use was the mechanism for raising and lowering the car. Instead of using pulleys, counterweigts, or hydraulic cylinders, they used an acme threaded shaft fitted with a bearing on one end and a reversible motor on the other. The car had a threaded sleeve attached to the side. Like the screw that drives the carriage on a lathe or moves the jaw on a vise, the car was raised and lowered by turning the threaded shaft. If fitted on your gantry by using a screw and motor on each side you could raise and lower your gantry using electric power.
I was amazed by the simplicity of the application. I realize it is too late for your gantry. But, it is worth considering if you have a need to raise something in the future.
I should mention, the regulatory agencies had no requirements for inspection of the tug's elevator. My guess is the tug and it's elevator are still in operation.
Another thought, like the traveler used on a sailboat for adjusting the boom for trimming the mainsail you could use a set of blocks and cleats to move your chain fall from side to side. If tou attached a line to each side of the traveler to a block at the sides of the gantry and then down to a cleat. This can also be done with a small winch and blocks in what amounts to a loop.
Bob
Man everyone is a backseat fabricator! Nice work making it functional for your needs. I love seeing you do some Fab work.
Keith, they make an electric trailer tongue jack that has 3500 pound capacity and 22 inches of travel. They cost about $110.00 on Amazon and run on twelve volts. You could wire a switch anywhere you like and could control both sides with the switches located beside each other. I know everybody has a different way of doing things and they think things should be done the way they want, but this is a comment section for throwing different ideas around. That gantry crane is a real handy tool to have!
Your fabrication work on the hoist is nothing short of fine art.
I appreciate that you’re not made of money, and I thank you for sharing all your very interesting projects with us.
On this one, though, you went to a lot of effort to make something 20% better, instead of committing just 10% more investment to make it 90% better. If you had used pneumatic cylinders you could lift both sides simultaneously. Put in a metering valve to balance to movement on each side. Then when you need to raise or lower it, you just hook up your air supply, remove the pins, and push a button to move both sides at once.
It’s easy to be an armchair quarterback, though. Thanks for sharing.
I’ve heard that commonly referred to to as “ swallow a camel and choke on a gnat “.
Thank you for sharing that bit of modifying your gantry
Great I allways follow you. great machinery and work. Thanks from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
I did almost the same thing with 2 boat trailer wenches. works like a charm and all the work is down on the ground, and faster. Great video.
I put a 2 foot long piece of 1/2” pipe in my hydraulic press for the pump handle. I drilled and pinned it in place. No more dropped handles. I’ll post a picture when I get back to my shop.
Thanks for the valve handle tip.
Thanks,
John
Nice modification. Thanks Keith.
Good improvement, good video. Thanks for sharing
Kieth I don't know if it has been mentioned but instead of pumping the ram up you can pull it by hand. I do this on my engine hoist all the time to get it quickly into position. Great project, thank you for the inspiration.
I am amazed at the size of your gantry crane. I would love to have one that size along with a building to use it in.
I noticed everyone and their brother has suggestions and I want to offer mine.
Mounting a length of all thread to so there is a nut on the bottom of the upper beam and a bearing point at the bottom of the A Frames. The thread would be enclosed inside of the uprights to keep it clean and protected. When the all thread is turned it would raise or lower the upper beam. Off set the mounting of the nut and bearing point so it clears the pin.
Powered or hand operated it would allow the beams to be raised or lowered completely without having to do more than remove the pin and crank the thread.
Great idea and great work. When you were discussing the original problem I imagined a wireless winch mounted to your ceiling. I thought you might just hook the winch cable to the top cross bar, and winch up and down from the safety of the ground. I guess you needed a portable solution. I appreciate your work and your channel. Thanks for posting.
Great job Keith you could use a single pump on the rams ,just have to plumb it into where the small pump on the side is and run the line over the top to the other side. The value you lower the ram down with needs to be blocked off as it returns the oil back into the outer case . Using the hand pump with a larger tank to hold the oil you requite . You can buy just the pump and build a tank to hold the oil. To make it easy use a hydraulic tipper used on small trucks and trailers that have a 12volt system.
We cut out a daisy shaped handle, drilled a center hole, welded in a 1/2" piece of rod, drilled the rod the same diameter as the release valve, drove the roll pin out of the release valve, cross drilled the rod to line up with the hole in the release valve, attached the handle and then drove the roll pin back in. We got a cute little handle that won't come loose and didn't have to make a trip to town.
A ram system for lifting the cab on a old cab-over truck would work perfectly for that application... They have 2 long reach hydraulic rams with one remote pump controller.
Excellent idea
At that point, you would need some way of adjusting the cylinders since you have no way to make sure they extend or retract equally... You would need some method of making sure each side went up the same distance. On a truck, the cab acts as a cube, and keeps it straight on the hinges. This hoist frame would lean one way or another since the seals of one cylinder will always have more friction than the other...
True, the one with least resistance would always be ahead of the other. But there is a proportioning valve in the pump body that is supposed to keep the hydraulic cylinders at an even lift rate, I think that the weight of that cross beam would be plenty enough to keep the proportioning valve working as it should.
However, there's nowhere to run the piping system for such a set-up . . . It's a Gantry Crane where the work-space is between the frames and there's no permanent cross-piece to fix to.
VERY useful.
Another possibility is to attach a sheave at the bottom of each column that needs to be raised. Then attach the end of a steel cable to the top of the A-frame on one side, run the cable down around the column sheave, up over a stationary sheave on top of the horizontal I-beam to another stationary sheave at the other end of the I-beam, down around the other column sheave, back up around a stationary sheave on the A-frame and back down to a hand winch attached within easy reach on one leg of the A-frame. Preferably, the winch should be a worm drive but winches with a built in automatic brake are also available. This sheave arrangement provides a 2:1 mechanical advantage added to that of the winch and would allow one to raise or lower both sides equally at the same time.
@Keith Rucker
2 trailer hand crank winches one on each side with the cable attached to the bottom of the uprights and the winches attached to where the bottom of the rams you have now
would have been less than 1/2 the cost of 1 of those rams and you wouldn't spent 10 hours pumping those jacks each time
I was going to say the same thing; a boat type winch, two cables and some pulleys. You could raise and lower both sides in sync, full travel. Not unlike what some hydraulic presses have.
@@marks5603 make that ditto, much quicker to use, cheaper and easier to fit. What's not to like?
@@marks5603 the problem with only 1 winch and 2 cables is the loop that has to go over the top has to be mounted on something that dose not move so it can act on the part that dose move
at first i thought the same thing 1 winch 2 cables but i did a rough mock up in a CAD and it carnt work
Adverse Effects Or use the type with the straps, rather than the cable. 👍
Or just use the available chain blocks... with a pulley on the bottom of the upprights.. and connect the hook to the top of the a frame.. :) (maybe the chain has to be extended by wire)
With this basic design (which I probably would not have used, but others have already suggested myriad other designs), rather than welding the lower bracket to the gantry crane, I would have made it clamp over the existing cross-brace. Then there would be no worries about the modifications weakening the crane in any way, nor would the warranty be voided. You could also remove the accessory completely if it would be in the way.
Like insurance companies that deny coverage if possible, with the way some companies honor warranties, just painting it a different color might void it. The color identifies it as their gantry regardless of stickers on it. I've never had to collect on any warranty. The product always broke after the warranty period.
Since today is comment day I will have to give you the best one I think, buy some land next to me, redo a new shop and house, you will have the extra set of hands because I would be there watching. Love your videos. Thanks.
valve handle: I use hydraulic jacks in a piece of equipment I build and I use a large cast wing nut from McMaster Carr. I turn the end of the valve rod round and bore out the wing nut and braze them together. Works great.
Keith, To quickly extend the ram on my engine lift and save time pumping I open the valve and lift the boom. Once past the height I need I close the valve. In your case you will simply pull the ram out. If you can swing the ram down, it would be easier to pull than trying to lift it while on a ladder.
You might put an eye on bottom of upright to hook hoist to, stopping it from running the rail. We had those on ship to stop hoists from swinging & running side-to-side.
Awesome work sir.
Nice solution. I think you could put the top of the ram in the bottom welded mount, and then move movable pin below the weld. This way you shift the ram down and can use it without a ladder
Nice improvement to the crane ! To get rid of a lot of pumping strokes you can make a modified pump with longer stroke and/or bigger bore.
keith i would wrap your welds around the corners! it makes your weld a lot stronger . keep up the good work
I like what your doing I did the same but used air rams no hydraulics it works great> I ran air hose to both sides so I can move both sides at the same time.
Someone's been practicing welding. Nice job Keith.
I LOVE your shop!
A friendly bit of advice, you don't have to describe your every move. A good bit of what you're doing is self evident. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Nicely done project, good design. It'll make adjusting it easier.
Thanks for the video.
Not air over hydraulic but air cylinders would be an option too. However If it works that is 90% of the game. Very well built. looks like a professional built it.
Looking forward to part 2
Keith you could use one crank up or even electric hoist with a cable going over the top like some shop presses have to raise or lower the work platform , no climbing, no going from side to side,
Northern tool sells 3 ton jacks with a double pump for $70. You could put a gear and bicycle chain on the release for the jack so you could operate it from the ground. Also a setup to pump the jack from the ground. Build a crankshaft that you could turn with a cordless drill or impact to pump the jack faster.
I believe if I had as much invested in equipment as you do I would go a step further and use a coordinated, pneumatic assisted jacking and de-jacking system, but to each his own. Good presentation.
Drain the oil, remove the pump and connect a air line. You can connect the two clynders together so they go up at the same time. Something light duty like this should work fine with occasional oiling.
the cylinders are designed for oil though so the seals will have more "stiction" than air counterparts. Using air on them will make them hard to control; they will stick, then suddenly pop (move) when the seal friction is overcome... then stick again.
@@EngineeringVignettes That is why I said that they need to be oiled occasionally.
Keith, if you would hook the loose chain hoist to side it would not slide from side to side. Also it you would like easier up to go to the next hole you could either pull on the ram and it will draw oil out of the reservoir through the jack. or pressurize the reservoir the fill plug with about 5 psi of air pressure.
nice mod. well done Keith.
Useful and innovative! Very good Job!!!
Great work. Like your design. Thank you
That is a nice solution to the problem.
Hey, Keith if you loosen the valve on the ram, you can pull it out. That’s how we raise our cherry picker quickly.
Nice mod. worked out great.
Really?! You're way too polite which doesn't help Keith. It's unsafe and he doesn't need to fall off the ladder and break a hip or become permanently crippled by breaking his ankle or cracking his skull on the floor. Say the obvious, it's time to start over and not get stuck in the Concorde Sunk Cost Fallacy, i.e., I can't change the design, I've spent all this time and money, I can't turn back now. As it now exists, this will be a runner-up for the 2019 award for the least overall improvement in function and safety. It's time to regroup and consider a simple cable system using a hand crank on one side while standing on the floor! (Maybe he could mockup a full scale or smaller wooden model to test his new design first. Keith has a nice wood shop.)
@@jimbeaver3426 There are many ways to do any one task. Keith had a plan, executed it and it works for him. He did not get hurt, he has thought out the safe practice's and he does not do this often. I worked in one of the most dangerous industries there is and have seen many sketchy setups, this one is not even close to that. I do think there are way to make this safer and easier to operate from the floor. I do support Keith in is YT endeavors, I know Keith and call him my friend and I am the last person to want to see Keith get hurt. If he follows his safety practices with this I think he will be fine. He does need to have a gusset the base of the cylinder.
Those air over hydraulic jacks are over at Harbor Freight for around a hundred bucks and on sale or with coupons less. Not sure but I believe they had a smaller one 2-4 ton? Always had good success with their hydraulics. Nice project. Take care. Doug
Hi Keith, I sure love your vids. Learning a lot about machining in general. Also enjoy the vids having to do with the Vulcan loco. Northern Calif had a whole slew of narrow gauge logging operations back in the day. Got most of the DVD's on them. Seemed dangerous working on them in those days b4 OSHA and FRA regs. Safety always seemed less important than getting the logs to the mill which ever way was the fastest. They had a lot of accidents. I also have a Vulcan, Harbor Freight Vulcan ProTIG 200. Excellent machine. I also grabbed an Everlast MTS211Si multi-process welder, and I love my Hypertherm 30XP plasma cutter. Kinda wished I got the 45XP, but couldn't afford it at the time. Great machines, but a little pricey. Wish I had your shop, what a beauty that is. The cat seems to like it too, LOL.
Take care and stay safe with all this COVID19 stuff. I'll be glad when things get back to normal. I just hope it doesn't bankrupt the US first.
Cheers!
I built the same crane and I used cable hoists on each side to solve the same problem.
I saw that on chucke2009 on a hydrolic press it worked great!!
Use a porta-power jack hookup to those cylinders. Can plumb both cylinders into one line, can easily "mount" the "jack" to the side of the frame of the crane. The issue of using air is, unless you have a sensitive control valve, it's either going to be full open, shooting the cylinders upward out of control. Don't have an issue with what you've done like a few other comments seem to be having. Just saying, it's a bit easier with long reach cylinders tied together plumbed to a porta-power jack system. Cheers :)
If you bolt a metal ruler to your cutoff saw, right of the blade, behind the work in line with the rear vise jaw, you can read off piece length directly without marking.
Great idea as part units
Keith, if you happened to have some kind of hydraulic pump around the shop you could use quick disconnects and two regular cylinders from salvage. A wrecked car hauler would be great.
Thanks
When you're lowering, I'd hook the chinfall hook onto one of those straps you welded on so the chainfall doesn't come blasting over side to side and slamming into the vertical.
Very ingenious but simple solution, good job as always! Thanks, you are always in my home!
Keith, I would put a hoop about the level of the name on the jack to keep it from flopping outward when you have the jack pin out to move to the next hole. Keep the jack from nailing you in the head and having to hold it all the time.
Pretty good on freehanding the taper.
Pulley on the bottom of each column- looped up over the top and a simple manual cable winch would raise and lower both sides equally while standing on the ground. Like moving the support plate a big press. Or just a piece of 4X4 laid across the forks of your forklift and under each column to move it up and down.
We need a month by month bicep measurement to keep track of this setups progress. I had a really nice 2 speed trailer winch that would have been great here. Another cool solution would be a chain pulley that plugged into the bottom of the riser tube, take winch chain through the pulley and back up to a fixed point on the leg. Use the existing chain winches to move it up and down. What you built looks really safe and great for your anaerobic health. ;-)
I Actually use the effect of an un-level make shift "scafolding gantry" to move massive boulders a few feet at a time in places where machinery nor multiple men can accomplish safely for waterfall building and moving and releveliing things like brick colums and mailboxes. I just set the Jacks an inch off and lift just till it clears and slides in the direction required.
Cool stuff, always like to see that you are working on
Wow... looks like you turned a pain in the ass procedure into a pain in the ass procedure.
Think I would have opted for a cable lift with a Harbor Freight Badlands winch.
Think I'd put a retaining loop to hold the chain hoists steady. Came crashing across 1st time. Ingenious.
Since you don't have a lot of weight to lift, perhaps long-stroke pneumatic cylinders plumbed together might be a more user-friendly option. You could pressurize and release both at a common valve. A really quick ebay search showed a 40mm (1.57") bore x 800mm (31.5") stroke cylinder in the $50-$60 range. If you can get 100 psi to those cylinder each would lift just shy of 200 lbs.
Nicely done ✅
Keith, I hope by now you have the cover on the starter switch for the belt sander !
Just. A small point, where spacing is critical ALWAYS weld the INSIDE
First. You can easily tap it inward after but difficult to spread outwards. ( 40 years a welder)
You can add a air powered pump ( like the museums) later.
PS air powered rams might not be strong enough, a 2" dia air ram on 120 psi will only lift 400 pounds.
I think he was talking about air over hydraulic rams. Used regular air rams are pretty cheap though.
You weld the inside it's going to pull in but ok.....
The whole top of the gantry doesn't weigh 400lbs so that would be plenty
That was a great idea and I will have to do this mod when I get my Gantry crane. The only thing I can see to be a hazard is if you forget to put the rams top retaining pin in the ram it could be a real head knocker. Nice work. 👍 🇺🇸 🗽
Nice addition to the crane.
Maybe the next update can be a pin-lock for the cross-slide holding the chain pulley...
drill some holes in the beam and weld a spring-loaded pin onto the cross-slide. Putting a rope on that and pulling would extract the pin from a beam hole and allow the cross-slide to move. Letting go of the rope would allow the pin to pop into the next hole it finds on the beam and lock it in position.
I still think motorized drive wheels on this thing would make moving it around single-handed much easier as well...
Cheers,
Love your videos
THANK YOU...for sharing. Watched and very much enjoyed.
Yeah, you will be swapping those out for air over hydraulic soon.
Or maybe just a 1 ton chain hoist on each side?
but as is works, he could do a slow pressure blead-off at the same time to do a level drop in a min. or so now that he has them in the top pin spot, UP is going to be where he will want to have air over, half an hour and many trips up that ladder... or in half that time running a small bar to each pump to use both at the same time.
@@progandy You are only lifting a total of maybe 500 pounds. We use cable come-alongs on each side. You do need some precision to get the pins in, so air wouldn't be as easy to work with. The come-alongs let you wiggle it up and down between ratchet pawls to get the pin in.
@bvcxz gt: Keith doesn't want to use come-alongs, though.
@@progandy I just can't understand why
Nice work! An other way is to use the chainfalls on the crane to lift itself. 2 sheaves at the bottoms of the vertical columns. A steel cable dead manned to the frame, threaded under the sheaves with the other end looped onto the chainfall hooks, and you won't need a ladder at all, and the chainfalls will behave themselves. My nephew and I came up with this solution independently. Maybe somebody could operate both chain falls at the same time.
Hi Keath I DIDN'T READ all 341 comments but I was thinking you could make a bar out of pipe to fit between the two pump handles so you could jack them at the same time since your lifting a light load for the size of jack. the handles could be shortened maybe 10" or 12" inches. I know the pipe would bow with that long of a span but it would help to fill the pipe with wood dowels without adding much weight. You will still have to lower them one at a time but that's easy.
pretty ingenious Mr. Rucker!
just a thought, wrap the chains around a hook added on one side or the other and they won't run away. Love your videos.
👍👍👍 job very well done
Keith, spray a little anti splatter on your squares, it keeps the weld splatter from sticking to them. Keep smiling.
The FireBall squares are either aluminum or cast iron so spatter doesn't stick.
@@royreynolds108 Hi Roy, actually weld splatter will stick to either metal. If you watch the video again you can see it stuck to the square. I have welded aluminum for 27 years and always used copper for a backer, a hot weld will stick aluminum to steel, not very well but it will leave annoying marks on the steel. Fronius has a welder that can weld steel to aluminum, no idea how that works but they do it. Keep smiling Roy.
Nice fix
Hi Kieth I enjoy your videos greatly. I know it is easy to criticize after the fact but the thing that would have stopped me would be climbing up and down a ladder to pull pins. (As a general comment the design of the gantry could be improved - relocate the main pins lower within normal reach height.) A simpler solution would have been two threaded rods with the fixed nut on the top and with the drive end ( bottom end) mounted to the movable movable legs. Power up and down with a battery drill. The threaded rods are in tension all the time so buckling is not an issue. Requires an upper nut with some small vertical movement so that rod tension can be transferred to the pins.
Taking a page from the CNC world, you could use a pair of synchronized stepper motors running acme threaded rods attached to the sides vertically to raise and lower the whole thing at the push of a button. Probably would cost about the same if not much more than what Keith did.
Good solution. Same deal with an acme screw would have worked too but this is probably cheaper and easier.
those rams you can open the valve and pull out the ram and shut the valve i made a knob for the valve
thats what i was going to say, works on engine hoists too
I was going to comment the same. Keith, these pull to full extension.
Hello on my engine host the Ram pump in both up and down its pretty cool. I have never seen one before.
Hand crank boat winch on the diagonals, pulley at the top, double pulley if you need it raise it up or lower, in one motion, then pin it off.
Enjoyed Keith!
ATB, Robin
ROBRENZ where the heck have you been?! I thoroughly enjoy your videos.
@@samueltaylor4989 Just super busy with real work
Nice idea Keith great job!
Now i don't know if they make those in the double extension rams like the old car bottle jacks had. But that would be so much better for you. Wouldn't have to take the pins out at all. Maybe you should look into that? A thought....
I think with all of the good suggestions here Keith would have been better off making a video about what he wanted to do before committing to the project. That guy can weld though! Thanks Keith.
great video !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Keith, You can manually pull these to full extension. Nice modification!
Nicely done, Keith. As an alternative, a couple of cheap hand cranked cable winches would have done the job easier, more compactly, and quicker. You could have even added a couple of pulleys and a "Y" harness and done it with a single winch so that both sides raised/lowered at the same time. I wouldn't recommend it for working under a load, but just for adjusting the beam height it would work perfectly.
It seems like a couple of pieces of all thread with nuts and some brackets, and you just stand on the ground with your impact driver and buzz each side up a little at a time, put pins in, and no jacking.
Like ed norton would say, zip zip zip and it's done.
Course this is best for an un-loaded situation.
Yeah there are a lot of problems which can be solved this way, with the widespread availability of cordless power tools with decent torque. I for one wish they'd sell crimpers for plumbing and large copper electrical lugs that worked this way. Could be a big cost saving for the weekend warrior who has a drill with a good gearbox or an impact driver.
I was thinking this also, with a chain connecting the rods at the top to turn both rods at the same time. And a small motor with a two way switch to turn the rods either direction. Motor could be mounted on side of top beam in the middle with shaft facing up so it wouldn't create any clearance above the lift. Heck, if you are going to engineer something, go all out!!! lol...
@@dannywilsher4165 the issue I see with any sort of connected approach is balancing. If the pinions/threaded rod/chain system isn't perfectly "aligned", the gantry will effectively be locked in a tilt where you can't put the load bearing pins in. It's less fancy, but if you just put separate allthread mechanisms on each side, you can do the same sort of method Keith does with the hydraulic Rams in this video, only no ladder and no frantic pumping of the jack, just go back and forth with an impact driver or an electric ratchet. Cheaper, easier to make, and virtually impossible to foul up.
Nice modification. Could you replace the rams with ball screws and use a cordless drill to raise and lower it?
ball screws would be overkill and expensive. just threaded rod would be enough.
Either would work but ball screws would be less likely to cause problems and 4 foot ballscrews would only cost £30.00 each and have a much faster 'rate' than threaded rod. I use ball screws for the same purpose in my workshop. I did try thereaded rod but it had a tendency to clog up.
Why would you do a question if you already know the answer? You already know you could use abutting from air cylinders, hydraulic cylinders, cable, threaded rod, ball screws, or anything that can create linear translations.
Andrew Delashaw, My question was could 'he' not use ball screws, NOT could I use ball screws. I do NOT know if HE could use ball screws so I do NOT know the answer. It was intended as a potentially helpful solution as the slow rate of hydraulic cylinders may become tedious. Keith can choose to ignore this advice if he wants but your comment is truly unhelpful. I did not say he 'should' have used ball screws because he may have had a good reason for not using them, it was a suggestion.
Cable winch or come-along works much better.
my solution would have been to put a small chain hoist somewhere on the ceiling so you can attach it to the i beam when you need to move it up and down.
Thought about the same thing, however he will be able to raise and lower crane out side of the shop this way, just so slow though.
@@craigsudman4556 you are right about versatility but from what he said switch from one part of the shop to another was the problem and from what i seen there is not much space form a gantry outside. anyway he could do both small chain hoist are not that expensive and it could be used for other thing.
Good idea, but not as much fun.
My guess is that a guy in China is now designing a crane which uses 2 air over hydraulic long reach cylinders to raise the column which utilizes spring loaded locks which click into holes in the column as the hoist moves up- like a car hoist- this also acts as the lifting mechanism and the all that is need on the top is a simple trolley with a chain for side to side motion. Soon available from Harbor Freight as a bolt together kit for 399.00