Steve from Socal
Well-known member
I needed a little hoist for my surface grinder to load and unload work. The grinder is in a room with a metal roof. I attached a section of Unistrut to a purlin for the hoist to travel on. The hoist will be used to pick up heavy for a person <50Lbs but, not more than about 200Lbs.
Harbor Freight has several 120 VAC electric hoists, I got the smallest one rated at 440 Lbs. I got the smallest one to limit the lift capacity, if I need to load a heavier piece I will use some other means. The hoist I got is a nice compact little device, it came with straps to mount on something like a single section Unistrut. I wanted a moving hoist so the strap mounts won't work. The other issue I had was, the hoist comes with a 5' long cord for the control pendant. My hoist will be 14' up, a trip to Home Depot for 10' of 12-4 Soow and, a bit of time fixed that.
To make the hoist mobile it needed some Unistrut trolley's, there were two options at least on ebay there were only two. I could have bought two of the light duty single axle trolleys for 20 bucks a piece or so or, a single dual axle trolley for 30 bucks. I cut the trolley in half with my sawsall and had just about exactly what the smaller trolleys were for 25% less money. I used some material that I had laying around for the bases of the trolleys. The material was a locking bar for a cabinet that was damaged and discarded. The nice thing about the material is it has stiffening flanges bent into it on both sides. Now we are on a roll!
The last thing to do is get power to it, traveling hoists have a few ways to supply them with power. I am going to use the simplest, a cord suspended by cable next to the hoist. This is where I am today, I will edit and include pictures when I finish.
Steve
Harbor Freight has several 120 VAC electric hoists, I got the smallest one rated at 440 Lbs. I got the smallest one to limit the lift capacity, if I need to load a heavier piece I will use some other means. The hoist I got is a nice compact little device, it came with straps to mount on something like a single section Unistrut. I wanted a moving hoist so the strap mounts won't work. The other issue I had was, the hoist comes with a 5' long cord for the control pendant. My hoist will be 14' up, a trip to Home Depot for 10' of 12-4 Soow and, a bit of time fixed that.
To make the hoist mobile it needed some Unistrut trolley's, there were two options at least on ebay there were only two. I could have bought two of the light duty single axle trolleys for 20 bucks a piece or so or, a single dual axle trolley for 30 bucks. I cut the trolley in half with my sawsall and had just about exactly what the smaller trolleys were for 25% less money. I used some material that I had laying around for the bases of the trolleys. The material was a locking bar for a cabinet that was damaged and discarded. The nice thing about the material is it has stiffening flanges bent into it on both sides. Now we are on a roll!
The last thing to do is get power to it, traveling hoists have a few ways to supply them with power. I am going to use the simplest, a cord suspended by cable next to the hoist. This is where I am today, I will edit and include pictures when I finish.
Steve
