Suggestions for hoist remote control?

One of my kids has a mains hoist in his business, but that was on a pendant (which his sparks made wall-mounted).

Surely the path of least resistance is a 12 volt hoist, if it is fast enough, together with a suitable power supply, either direct or trickle charging a stairlift type battery.

The control unit is a safety critical item, I don't expect any manufacturer would want to trust its functions to a remote control.

A mains hoist is by far the easiest & cheapest option. The cheap ones are noisy, if you're in a semi or terrace you may want to house it in a wooden box.

NT

Can I hijack your thread and go off at a tangent - sorry!

Why not have a storage facility that rises and falls through a hole in the ceiling? Powered. Lower it - put things in/take things out - then raise it. When up, it's flush with the ceiling. You would need to seal the gap against draughts.

You could store your clothes in the loft space this way, freeing up space in your bedroom, whilst still having them available 'at the touch of a button'.

I've never seen that done, though. What's the snag?

For me it would be the size of the hole in the ceiling. I plan to have a square access hatch for the hoist that will be in a corridor and with a side of less than one metre.

I'd use a 12V one. You'd have to power it from a battery though (with a trickle charger) because it would draw a lot of current, so a PSU that would handle it would be expensive.

Most stairlifts are 12V with a battery and trickle charger. One advantage is that the thing continues to work during a power cut.

Yours isn't a safety critical application so I think a radio remote would be fine.

I think it's a good idea. I might do it myself.

Bill

Any goods lifting hoist is an immediate hazard if not properly controlled. You can't get reliable control from a remote control.

NT

OT reply, but if you are intending to lift many heavy items into the attic, are you sure it will take the weight? If you are doing the lifting, it soon becomes obvious that something heavy is going up, but if it's done mechanically, you might not be aware of just how much is going up there!

It would perfectly safe if properly designed. Indeed it could even be more safe because the operator can take any position to view or manhandle the load and also without interference from a pendant control's umbilical cord.

Back in the mists of time one of my first jobs out of university was selling remote control systems for the types of cranes and trolleys that run over the ceilings of factories. That was back when STC was a company and trying to diversify from telephone exchange equipment.

Exactly. And whatever the type of crane is, and how it is controlled, you don't stand under a load when it is being lifted or moved FFS.

It's a point, but to be fair the OP specifically mentioned carrying bags of water softener salt, not something you would normally store in bulk.

led. You can't get reliable control from a remote control.

I don't. You don't. Sensible people don't. But this is proposed for domesti c install where children are likely to have access. To start a hoist then f ind the batteries are too weak to stop it is idiotic. There are also ways t o get caught up in the cable & moving load - they're recipes for serious in jury if misused by children who suddenly find it won't stop. But hey it's y our life.

NT

Your guesswork understanding of this type of remote control, where motion could be started and then not stopped on account of battery failure, range and distance or radio interference, is neither accurate nor useful. Also, if you know of any children that you claim are "likely to have access" to possible equipment discussed in this thread then please share it with me.

Didn't have anything to do with one in the Vosper Thorneycroft Shipyard at Southampton did you? Worked fine until a dredger started working nearby which had something on it that interefered with the crane, cue some alarming moments in the shipyard.

G.Harman

I had plead not guilty to having any connection with some Vosper Thornycroft near disaster or with shipyard cranes in general. The kit I peddled was only for the control of overhead factory cranes like this:

Back in the day (late 60's) they each had a full-time operator who only did a few minutes of work each day. Our kit got him out of his cab and able to do a full day's work. That saved the factory money and likely saved the operator from an early heart attack and death. Cite:

Yep, I realised what type of crane you were referring to, the Vospers one was inside the construction shed and of much the same genre, not an outside Dockside crane with a jib. I actually found a reference to solving the problem on the WWW

The HBC systems referred to are from this outfit

Whether the OP wants to go to that sophistication to replace a loft ladder is up to them. Personally I would keep it simple and just use a lightweight manual rope pulley hoist, you can then feel if something is too heavy or caught and stop in time, controls or not with power it is all too easy for something to snag and damage too occur.

G.Harman

They don't make them like that any more! I confess to spending many happy hours crawling around on the gantries of nuclear power station cranes, some dating from the 1960's.

Thanks to all for the comments and I believe I will settle for these:

That Warrior hoist is way oversized for my modest needs but is the smallest one that is socketed to work with their remote control.

The actual hoist looks very similar to one I purchased in Aldi / Lidl about 15 years ago for a task similar to yours, in my case lowering items through a hatch into a boats hold. Worked well enough but was very noisy, in the end I found a manual rope block and tackle quicker. My brother uses the hoist now when butchering Deer he has shot.

G.Harman