can you help me design & make an automatic pulley system for the attached objects?

Caroline Mackenzie

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Dec 18, 2015, 2:56:37 PM12/18/15

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To whom this may concern,

I am looking for someone to fabricate a pulley system that automatically pulls an object smoothly up and down.

To give you an idea of what I envisage, I was keen for the ‘jellyfish’ (pic. below) to move, very slowly up & down, so that the metal circles would move around 6 metres in height all in all, to allow the drapery to rise and collapse from the floor.

Many thanks in advance of your time - hugely helpful!

Best wishes,

Caroline

Screen Shot 2015-12-18 at 15.15.10.png

Henry Best

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Dec 18, 2015, 11:43:03 PM12/18/15

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Caroline,

Do you want them to move independently or together?

How heavy are they?

Is there somewhere, out of sight, where the motors can be mounted on the floor, or will they have to be mounted above?

What is above them? Anything solid to mount motors or pulleys to?

How slowly do you want the rings to rise (or fall) the 6 meter distance? Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks?

If you define your problem, someone may be able to help you.

If you don't, we're just guessing, wasting both our time and yours.

Liam Lynch

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Dec 19, 2015, 8:11:24 AM12/19/15

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Hi Caroline,

As Henry mentions there are quite a few details missing.

But that, said I'd suggest you use a couple of light duty winches, some of which can be found on the web for as little as £50.00 each. They are 12V and designed for quad bikes. They will each handle over 200kg which by the look of it sould be enough. That will allow you to concentrate on a simple control circuit to raise and lower them automatically. An arduino should allow you to do that.

Wiches have an advantages. first they are all ready build and geared. Saving a tonne of time and effort. A winch had a breaking capacity, so if the power fails they just stop. They will take a decent load. If these are to be used in public some idiot will try and swing from them and at 200kg plus they sould be up to the job. Winches often come with wire rope, but I an sure you can change that to nylon rope for your task.

You can use pullys to allow the motors to be placed out of sight/sound.

Thats what I'd do

Liam

On Friday, 18 December 2015 19:56:37 UTC, Caroline Mackenzie wrote:

Henry Best

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Dec 19, 2015, 10:17:08 PM12/19/15

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Liam,

Looking at the photo and seeing them hanging on what looks like a nylon fibre, I'd guess their weight to be under 20Kg each, but we don't know!

For that, your winches would be overkill and I think a heavy duty stepper motor would be sufficient, cheaper and more controllable, speed wise.

But, as I said above, with no data we're both guessing.

With regard to your worry about someone swinging on them (I'm more worried about things like jewellery being accidentally caught in them than stupidity and vandalism), the suspension cord passing over a sprung tension arm fitted with a switch to stop the motor would solve that. But we don't know how much access the public will have to them. Maybe they'll be behind glass! Again, we're just guessing.