How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

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SteveHGraham
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How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

Post by SteveHGraham »

I have a sore back from moving boulders, and I am thinking about safety today. For example, I'm seriously considering getting a $300 hand truck. It seems cheap compared to medical bills.

Someone on forum suggested using a Hoyer patient lift in the shop. This is like a cherry picker for people. It holds up to 400 pounds, and it lifts things over about a 50" range. Could be useful in the shop. Rotary tables and chucks come to mind.

Problem: like a cherry picker, it has supports that stick out in front of it, and the factory wheels on the ends of the supports are very large. If you want to run this thing under a lathe with a clearance of about 2", you can forget it.

Obviously, the wheels can be removed, and something else can be used. Wondering if anyone has suggestions. I could put mounting plates on the tubing and run axles through them, but what kind of tiny wheels will stand up to shop use?

I live in an area full of old people, so things like this come on the market all the time. I found one offered for $50, which is better than the $1000 new cost.

07 25 19 hoyer patient lift.jpg
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SteveHGraham
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Re: How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

Post by SteveHGraham »

While I'm at it, I have another question: how useful is a trolley on a gantry crane? Seems like it would be dangerous to me, because the hoist and load could shift in a hurry.
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Re: How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

Post by Harold_V »

Solid small diameter steel rollers could be substituted for the wheels on the patient lift, but they would be far more difficult to move in a shop environment, where chips on the floor is the norm.

A crane of almost any description would be relatively useless unless it had a trolley. Rarely would anyone pick a load and not transport it to a second location. The shifting problem you mention isn't usually an issue, as the weight of the pick will usually keep the trolley where it is located, with at least a little effort required to cause the trolley to move. That's assuming the crane is on level ground, which I would expect to be the case in the shop.

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SteveHGraham
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Re: How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

Post by SteveHGraham »

The ad copy for gantries says never to move them when they're loaded. Is that just lawyer talk?
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Re: How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

Post by LIALLEGHENY »

Add a platform to the base of Hoyer lift over the large wheels and place as much weight on it, steel plate , cinder blocks , what have you, that at least equals the heaviest rotary table , vise etc that you will be picking up. Unbolt/cut off the upright with lift cylinder and boom and spin it around 180 degrees. If you can add a cross member about a 18" back and mount it to that. OR look at Harbor Freight or an equivalent engine hoist and spin the hoist around on that.

https://www.farmshow.com/a_article.php?aid=26029

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Re: How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

Post by BadDog »

SteveHGraham wrote: Thu Jul 25, 2019 4:11 pm The ad copy for gantries says never to move them when they're loaded. Is that just lawyer talk?
I have a rolling A frame gantry with trolley. You don't generally move the gantry, you move the trolley. Though I have moved the gantry carefully when WELL under rated limit, it's not something that moves easily or smoothly, so you wouldn't even try to move it with much load. Those A-frames are very weak when not near perfectly vertical, so pulling it loaded in any plane other than that containing the A-frame is particularly ill advised.

Mostly it's used to for pickup loads, and the trolley is just for side to side positioning in the bed while the truck pulls under/out.
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SteveHGraham
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Re: How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

Post by SteveHGraham »

So realistically, with the width of the hoist and the 7'10" space under the gantry, I would be able to move things maybe 4.5 feet.
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Re: How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

Post by SteveHGraham »

I thought about reversing the patient lift. It seemed to me that it would reduce the capacity, which would not necessarily be a big deal, if I could still move 200-pound objects. I was also concerned about increasing the footprint.

That Harbor Freight adaptation would kill 20 square feet, and maneuvering it would be very hard. I would have to have a very big shop for that.
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Re: How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

Post by BadDog »

Get a die table. Gantry heavy stuff from truck to die table. Roll die table to destination, align height, slide stuff off/on. Works for most things except hoisting onto the lathe, or floor. For the lathe, get or build a sky hook. Great for managing large chucks! For the floor, I either put it where I can get a lift to it, slide it where I can get a lift to it, or put it on some little scoots I call "low boys". They have about 1/4" of floor clearance and high capacity steel 3" wheels (look like big cam followers). These are mostly around 4'x3' and allow heavy stuff to be loaded, then scooted under high capacity storage (Vidmar, Lista etc) cabinets, lathe, etc for storage. When I need it, I roll it out, and grab or hoist as required....

Other folks build fancy overhead gantries or swing arms with trolleys and such. And forklifts are nice. It can be a problem with no simple (or cheap) solution...
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Re: How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

Post by liveaboard »

I love cranes; one of my barges has a crane, it's 100 years old and I replaced the hand cranks with electric motors. It lifts high and swings 15 feet, but won't lift more than a few hundred pounds without the whole 90 ton ship heeling over a lot.

Here in Portugal I have a swinging beam with a trolley and electric chain hoist, that's rated for a ton. I lift my cars, the tractor [only 1 wheel at a time, it's 4 tons], all sorts of things.

I recently built a rolling hoist in my work container. It was a lot of work, but I recommend doing it.
It's out of the way, it was cheap, and it does my work.
Unfortunately, few of us are getting stronger as the years pass.
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SteveHGraham
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Re: How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

Post by SteveHGraham »

I had to look up "die table."

I bought a Harbor Freight lift table a few weeks back. Very nice thing to have, but everything I want to lift has to fit on a surface a little smaller than an ottoman. I used it to pull out my badly designed oven so I could reset the non-resettable thermal fuse.

Of course, if I take the lift table anywhere, I will need something else to lift it out of the truck. Either that or pull a 90-pound object out of a truck 37" high and place it on the ground. Pretty much what I want to avoid. Another problem with the lift table is that if the thing I have to move is on the ground, I have to lift it onto the table before the table can lift it.

The gantry would be good for working on the mower (over half a ton, before someone suggests a mower lift), loading and unloading the truck, and picking up machinery within its capacity for various purposes. I never thought about moving things with it. You can't move an object shaped like a swing set much in a shop.

I have considered a tractor boom pole. It's a great thing, but to use it, you have to unhitch whatever is on your 3-point, connect the pole, and maneuver the tractor. I don't think you get a lot of lifting range with a boom pole.
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Re: How to Make a Patient Lift Roll up to Low Machines?

Post by BadDog »

Yea, die-table or die-cart comes from their common usage in tool and die shops. Specifically for managing large heavy die components. That's where I first encountered them. Hence, the name.

That get it into and out of a truck is what the gantry is for. Or bucket. Or engine lift. I covered all that, and I do all that, including floor etc. There is no one size fits all, they all work in concert, each with its own strengths...

3 point pole has more range than you think, it's multiplied by that lever arm, and power divided by same. Years ago when I had a car hauler, I had a long section of well pipe (I think?) that I got set up as a gin-pole. 2 grab hooks about 2/3 of the way up, set the end of the tube on the 2" hitch ball, chains to both sides of the bed, and I had a LONG pole that made engine swaps, or standing a car on end if need be, quite easy. With engines, it had such a long cable, you could easily move an engine+trans around several inches each way with one hand trying to get things past or aligned.
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