Locking caster question

[wayne mak]

I was down in Orlando for a week, the Walmart had shopping carts that had wheels that locked up if you left the lot. (must be a good area) The wheel must have some sort of electronic sensor in it that puts the brake on once out of range of something.

I am making a floating island for my kitchen (wife and I can't agree where to put it) I will be welding up the frame and finshing with wood doors, I have been thinking of what type of wheels/casters to use so it looks good and stays put when you want it. When at Walmart I was racing back to the car with my 3 year old in the cart and it just STOPPED, about tossing the kid out and my back all at once. So I then read the warning on the cart about going to far from the store, it says once beyond the lot the wheels lock so don't waste your time stealing me. This would be great for my project, I could just have a on/off switch to activate the brake. Has anyone seen these? Can they be bought? Not sure what the normal postion is locked or unlocked, I would think it would need some sort of battery that my wear out if left in the locked position most of the time.

[Lee Michaels]

"wayne mak" wrote

Far be it for me to suggest anything illegal....................., but, it seems that Walmart has some of these casters located conveniently in their parking lots.

Maybe you can do a google search on shopping carts and come up with something.

[wayne mak]

[Leon]

Seriously, that is a reminder not to take the cart. The cart is not heavy enough, even loaded down, for the wheel brake to keep you from leaving the parking lot with it. I find most wheel locks of this sort effective in braking the wheel but not to prevent the wheel from skidding across a surface.

[Earl Creel]

Can't offer anything useful about locking shopping cart wheels, however, many of us have small shops that force us to put shop machines on wheels so they can be moved to make room to work. This then creates the problem of how to anchor the machine when we want to use it. Some kind of wheel locks may be okay for certain situations but as Leon indicates a locked wheel may not provide enough friction to prevent sliding. Three of my machines are on wheels and they each have a different method of anchoring them in place without locking the wheels:

On my lathe the casters are on a hinged beam that allows them to be unlatched so they can swing up and allow the feet of the lathe stand to sit on the floor.

My stand for the planer has wheels mounted slightly behind and slightly above floor level. To move the planer I pick up the front which causes the rear legs to raise off the floor. (like a wheel barrow)

My router table has a 3/4" plywood board fastened to the skirt board of the table with a piano hinge. When raised to horizontal this leaf is at a height that will just slide over the top of my work bench/assembly table. My bench has many tee nuts in the top which are used to anchor cleats (bench dogs) etc. The plywood leaf is bolted to the table using two of the tee nuts. The weight and mass of the bench provides a very effective anchor for the router table.

Perhaps others have come up with ways to anchor things on wheels that they might share.

Earl Creel

[Bob McConnell]

The shopping carts have to be unlocked with a special tool. They lock when they get close to a transmitter mounted in the same pillars used to detect the departure of theft prevention devices used in the merchandise. That releases a spring loaded brake. The brake has to be reset with a specific tool. The Target at the local mall has them on the doorway into the mall, but not on the outside exit. The mall management doesn't want the carts wandering around the halls.

I used to have a typing table with a different option. It had castors near the corners, two fixed and two free. There was a lever inside the right side panel that raised and lowered four feet through rotating cams, locking them down with a roller in a notch on each cam. The feet were also threaded so they could be adjusted once they were in place.

It would probably be easier to put the castors on a rotating block with a hinge or off-center pivot that would keep the block square when there was weight on the wheels. Just lift the side and kick the block and wheels back out of the way to let it sit down on the feet.

Bob McConnell N2SPP