Mobile powered gantry crane

[ben8vgte]

I'd go for a 90 degree gear reduction motors and a chain reduction drive to the wheel, get some second hand ones off an old conveyer belt system. If funds are short a manual chain block, you can always re sell it later probley for the same price you brought it and get an electric.

 

[astro_al]

Hi, yes thats kind of the way I'm thinking now. A mate suggested robbing an electric wheelchair (!) of all its gear, its got torquey motors with a decent duty cycle, variable speed control and can hopefully be found cheap on ebay. I'll probably gear it down with a chain/sprocket to the wheel as the speed is too high and the extra torque multiplication will help. So it looks like thats how I'll proceed at this point, still digging though!

For the hoist, being on a budget, I am looking into a manual chain hoist driven by a dedicated motor. Still thinking about it though. Looks like the cheapest way to go. I could mount the hoist and motor on a trolley on the main beam and have a final drive for traversing the trolley if I felt like it.

Should all run fine off a car battery or two and be nicely controllable (control cost included in wheelchair purchase!).

Cheers, Al.

PS anyone know of some rusty I beams / rsj / c beams in hampshire?