Quote:
Originally posted by sanddrag
I've thought of two things to lift a hopper or basket or whatever you call it. What if you had a winch drum attatched to the window motors. Those things go slow and cannot be backdriven. There would be a steel cable attatched to the winch drum on one end and attatched to the basket on the other end with a pulley to change the direction somewhere in between. So, when you wind up the cable, the basket would be pulled upward. You could replace the cable and winch with a chain and sprocket I suppose. Whichever way you make it, you could have two of these mechanisms pulling up the basket. The basket would have to slide on some sort of track - perhaps telescoping.
Another thing I thought of was something like a screw drive. Have a really big bolt thing spun by a motor and have part of the basket be like a really big nut. Has anyone done this? Would it work?
Or what about a scissor lift operated by the optional 18" stroke pneumatic cylinders or some other means?
Also, how does your everyday forklift go up so high in such a small package?
We are really getting somewhere. Lets build on these ideas. Go!!!
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Actually, the FP motor/gearbox makes a really good winch. For ideas on telescoping you might want to check out my White Paper on lift mechanisms.
I won't say "don't do a scissors" but I don't recommend it. The scissors lift is a very subtle problem. It looks easy, but as you get into it it gets really ugly. It also has limited utility as your load must stay centered, and they tend to be heavy.
A four bar linkage is much more practical. One of these days I might even rework that portion of the White Paper, but I've got enough on my plate at the moment.
Since you're in Southern California you might want to come to the SCRRF workshops. I will probably be doing a reprise of my Lift presentation. I'd love to have someone in there who has been thinking about the problem before hand. I might even leak the results of my four bar work a little early.
That is before posting it here, which depends on whether we need it this year or not.