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Re: [TowerTalk] HF Winch

To: towertalk reflector <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] HF Winch
From: Mike Reublin NF4L <nf4l@comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2014 14:40:57 -0500
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Dave,

I shudder at you story, and because of it, I won't have to shudder at mine. 
Thanks.

Interventions rock!

Mike NF4L

On Feb 3, 2014, at 1:54 PM, David Gilbert <xdavid@cis-broadband.com> wrote:

> 
> About five years ago I bought an inexpensive Harbor Freight hand-crank worm 
> gear winch for use in a simple homebrew mast raising fixture.  The mast plus 
> antenna weighed less than 250 pounds and the winch was rated at 2,000 pounds. 
>   It sounded fine on paper but almost created a disaster.  The worm gear was 
> hard steel but the toothed gear was apparently made from mild steel because 
> after only a few feet of lifting I could tell that teeth were being ground 
> away.  I literally had to apply fresh lithium grease to the teeth every 
> revolution of the toothed gear and after about 10 feet of lifting there was 
> less than 50% of the metal left on each tooth.
> 
> I also once bought a Harbor Freight crowbar ... the beefy kind (maybe 5/8 
> inch diameter) that you normally use for pulling large nails.  I was using it 
> to pry something apart and I literally put a large permanent bend in it just 
> with my own arm strength.
> 
> There is no way I would trust anything of value to Harbor Freight steel, and 
> in the case of NF4L's tiltover tower there are so many things that are far 
> beyond good engineering guardbands (the probability of bad steel, the >REAL< 
> winch rating versus the load, the ridiculously undersized motor as revealed 
> by the duty cycle rating, the lack of a brake, etc) that if he hadn't decided 
> on his own not to use that HF winch we should have staged some kind of 
> intervention or something.
> 
> 73,
> Dave   AB7E
> 
> 
> 
> On 2/3/2014 10:57 AM, Les Listwa wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Just want to share my experience with a " cheap"  2500lb Electric Winch.
>> Tried to use one ( actually even tried a second one)  to lift a Hazer type
>> device up 40 feet of 45G.  My load was about 300 lbs total.  What I found,
>> is that before I had a chance to even try to lock the Hazer device in
>> place, the winch would begin to creep down, once I took my finger off the
>> up button.  A winch is not designed to lift.
>> 
>>  Also, 2500lb of torque  is a powerful beast and I learned that if
>> something goes wrong,  in a split second that 2500lbs of torque can rip
>> apart cables and aluminum, before you even realize there is a problem,
>> because there is no feedback. I learned that the hard way.
>> 
>> Based on the advice of  John, W2GD, Antenna and Tower Installer
>> extraordinaire, I switched to a Fulton K1550 manual winch and had a local
>> welder make  a custom mount for the tower. I have complete control and can
>> stop it on a dime.  My recommend is to go with a Fulton Manual Winch.
>> 
>> By the way, to power my electric winch, I used a Sear car 12V battery
>> boosters (500 peak amps/400 cranking amp) , just left it trickle charging
>> until I wanted to raise or lower the antenna.
>> 
>> 73
>> Les
>> W2LPL
>> _______________________________________________
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> 
> 
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