Vertical Tracks for Forklift

[anthonygraff24]

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.

[BBray_T1296]

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

[asid61]

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

[Mike Marandola]

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

[Whippet]

Originally Posted by asid61

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

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.

[z_beeblebrox]

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

[Jared]

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.

[adammiller3122]

we use 80/20 extruded aluminum tubing

[GeeTwo]

We're using 2"x1"x1/8" aluminum c-channel for the frame and roller support. Since our height restriction is constant this year (don't have to be shorter at startup or go under some bar somewhere), we went with a single-stage lift rather than the two-stager shown above.
To keep the lift plate level on the roll axis, we're using two chains rather than one. To control pitch rotations, we've made a "double-decker sandwich" of teflon and aluminum. The center piece of aluminum is shorter than the others, and the c-channel frame fits into this groove. There's about a quarter inch of left-to-right play at the center that curves up to about half inch at the top and bottom. We're hoping that'll be enough to prevent binding. If not, we'll cut out a shape similar to half of a woodworiking biscuit from the central plate and put a matching piece of teflon there. Should that fail, we are considering rollers made of radial bearings mounted on bolts: two bearings on each side, all inside the C-channel, with the top one meeting the c-channel on the front face and the lower one contacting the back face. If we go to rollers, we'll have to move our limit switches, which are roller switches mounted inside the c-channel.

[GortGortGort]

We are using tel-power poles retrieved from dumpster diving .
Call around to electrical company's they toss these everyday .
Love free stuff !
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/41182

[abross]

We are using 80/20 for the rails 80/20 rollers.

[Mike Marandola]

Originally Posted by GortGortGort

We are using tel-power poles retrieved from dumpster diving .
Call around to electrical company's they toss these everyday .
Love free stuff !
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/41182

What is the profile of those? Are they channel, box, or something else?

[redsox11]

We're using 3x3 80-20 with linear slide bearings.

[RonnieS]

We have been using 6063 for years and it works just fine for us. I would love to get 1/16" wall but like others have said, its hard to find here in Michigan. But they sell 1x1" in 1/16" wall...I don't get it.
-Ronnie

[MrRiedemanJACC]

Hmmm, I'm really surprised ALRO doesn't have the 2"x1" x 1/16" . I'll call tomorrow to see if they have any here in Jackson (where they are based - I've been lucky enough to meet Mr. Al Glick through robotics - he's the Al of Alro and a great guy) We have some 2"x1"x1/8" but didn't use it. We were able to get our hands on Rev profile, the v-groove bearings, made our own mounts with the help of a local machine tool builder with a laser cutter, and made our own bushings for the bearings. So that's what we are going with.


So to hijack the thread a bit what is everyone powering their lift(s) with?

We are using a Cim with a 27 -1 versa planetary and a 12 tooth 35 chain sprocket .

No brake yet...