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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => Lighting Forum => Topic started by: John Roll on December 24, 2018, 09:44:38 AM

Title: Powered light stand lifts
Post by: John Roll on December 24, 2018, 09:44:38 AM
I had an idea about an electric version of a hand crank stand.Being a weekend warrior,  I do the shows myself. Most of the time I have to crank down the stands one at a time. Occasionaly I get  Help from one of the bands. I was wondering if there was a way to motorize the crank stand using a small winch up some sort. Or is there something out there that I've missed searching for?

Thanks.
John
Title: Re: Powered light stand lifts
Post by: Mark Cadwallader on December 24, 2018, 10:28:25 AM
I had an idea about an electric version of a hand crank stand.Being a weekend warrior,  I do the shows myself. Most of the time I have to crank down the stands one at a time. Occasionaly I get  Help from one of the bands. I was wondering if there was a way to motorize the crank stand using a small winch up some sort. Or is there something out there that I've missed searching for?

Thanks.
John

Unless you find a winch rated at or below the rated capacity of the stand, don't even think about it.  A winch with a higher WLL (assuming no adjustable cluch mechanism) could overload the components of the stand, such as the pulley or its axle. A failure would likely cause the load to have an uncontrolled descent, and the stand is (probably) not designed to hold a dynamic shock load.
Title: Re: Powered light stand lifts
Post by: Don T. Williams on January 04, 2019, 06:09:03 PM
They aren't cheap, but Genie makes a CO2 powered lift.  I think it goes to 18' and can lift a couple of hundred pounds.
Title: Re: Powered light stand lifts
Post by: Jeremy Young on January 04, 2019, 07:28:56 PM
I use some Ultimate Support TS-110BL (http://www.ultimatesupport.com/ts-110bl.html) stands that are air-powered and get up to about 9'.  I've never put more than 50lbs on them before but they are very sturdy.  Might help depending on what you're lifting, it's very quick to deploy.
Title: Re: Powered light stand lifts
Post by: Brian Jojade on January 05, 2019, 02:53:05 AM
You don't want to make modifications to your stands. A calculation error or construction error could result in catastrophe.

Now, conceptually, putting a motorized winch in place of the hand crank one could work just fine.  You can find electric boat winches for under a hundred bucks.  However, again, I wouldn't recommend this as if something goes wrong, that's on you.  I doubt the boat winches have any sort of extra safety mechanisms in place in case of failure.