Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

My team is in the process of building a forklift and we were wondering what other teams were using as vertical tracks to guide their lift up and down.

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

A lot of people use systems very similar to this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ6a6dc4BGg

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

Plain old 2x1. 1/16" wall, but we can switch to 1/8" if we need to.

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

We are using garage door tracks. It is not ideal and I am quite worried about binding but we will see this week.

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

Same. In place of rollers, we have a larger (1.5 x 2.5, I believe) tube that will fit around the 2x1, with PTFE sheets affixed to the inside as a friction reducer. We'll see how it goes.

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

2 stacked 1" wide, .25" thick laser-cut plywood rails.

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

On the outside, we have 2" x 1" .125" wall rectangular aluminum tubing with some lightening pockets. The carriage has 8mm ID 22mm OD shielded bearings that roll on the 2" x 1". Our preliminary testing showed that delrin rollers didn't roll very nicely when loaded with 50 lbs cantilevered out a foot from the lift tower when the vertical distance between bearings was around 5", but ball bearings ran much more smoothly.

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

we use 80/20 extruded aluminum tubing

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

We're using the REV extrusion and bearing system.

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

Igus sent track/rail sections in the KoP. We called them and they are sending us a 72" track, not free of course, but they do give FRC teams a discount.

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

Did you have any problems with them binding? I have found that if the load is not on center they bind very easily.

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

If only we could find 1/16" wall east of the Mississippi....it is a REAL struggle to find that stuff. There was a thread a while ago that was looking for sources for it, but all of those seem to have dried up. Does it even qualify as COTS anymore if we can't get it? It shows up in some catalogs, but if you call them up, they just don't carry it. Alro said the only way we could get it would be through a custom mill run...

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

Check your local metal shops if you haven't already. We get our stock from Alan Steel, although I want to investigate that place the Poofs use in the offseason.
This place has 2 x 1 x 1/16" but it's 6063, not 6061: metalsdepot.com part# T321116.

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

I definitely would recommend against using 6063. It almost seems like a completely different material

Re: Vertical Tracks for Forklift
 

We are using 80/20 for the vertical rails. Our traveling element uses skateboard bearings.
The whole thing works smooth as ice and was easy to build. Can easily lift 4 totes and a bin. Very successful so far.