[TowerTalk] Motorizing a TX-472

[Al Williams]

Be careful not to compare apples to oranges here.

My 15 yr old tilt raising fixture for the UST 89' tower uses three
pulleys
for mechanical advantage.  My 3 yr old LM-470 tilt raising fixture uses
only one pulley for mechanical advantage.

Furthermore, the winch for the UST  was the k2550 (~40:1 gearing)
versus the LM-470's k1550 (15:1 gearing).

Winching the UST tower is easy but winching the LM-470 was very
difficult until I replaced the k1550 with a k2550.

Later I modified the LM-470 tilt raising fixture and cabling to use
three pulleys also and it cranks easily.  I probably expend as much
energy moving my arm and hand as I do raising the tower?

I have not used the pivot-at-the-top-of-the-tower method of tilting
the tower (which has no pulley mechanical advantage, relying only
on the winch and tower balance) because of workmanship issues.

I would be interested in how well that works and why would anyone
want to motorize it?

k7puc


----- Original Message -----
From: "Julio Peralta" <jperalta at tampabay.rr.com>


> I have an 89' UST tilt over crank-up. I use a 1/2 DeWalt drill motor
that I
> bought from Home Depot for less than $100. The drill has an approx.
1HP
> motor and when coupled to the shaft that the hand crank goes on will
stand
> up the 89' UST very nicely.
>
> Julio, W4HY
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joe Giacobello" <k2xx at swva.net>
>>
> > Has anyone ever motorized the tilt-over winch on an LM-470 or
similar
> > tower?  If so, I'd be interested in knowing how you did it.  I know
a
> > friend of mine once fabricated his own tilt tower that was perfectly
> > balanced around the pivot points so that he could tilt it by just
> > manually pulling up on the base and pushing it into a horizontal
> > position.  Maybe counter weighting the LM-470 so it was more
balanced
> > might allow a motorized winch to do the same thing easily.  Just
curious
> > what you mechanical gurus have done on this front.
> >
> > 73, Joe
> >
>