hi all,
I am an electrican (tried 2 x electricians forums) and I have a client who owns a converted church of which has very high ceilings. He has asked me to install a winch system that he can lower the ceiling lights with, change the lamps and raise them up again. I have looked at various hoists but the ones available all seem to be 125KG upwards and dont look very pretty. The loads I would like to lift are only around 10KG so the unit dosent need to be that big..it needs to lift to around 7 metres only also.
Anyone any ideas? Ive seen a couple of light raisers but they disgustingly expensive 100s of pounds (im in the UK)
Thanks

 

for something with a safety factor sufficient for suspending loads overhead of unprotected church congregations, I would expect it to be disgusting expensive.

you may be able to motorize something like this: http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/DUTTONLAINSON-Manual-Winch-6Z001?Pid=search relatively inexpensively and still maintain a reasonable degree of safety. they only pay off their cable if you hold down the ratchet mechanism; so no chance of unintended unspooling if the motor fails or coupling breaks. The only worry I can think of is there would be no limit switch at the top. This would leave you with the opportunity to go too far upward and either break the cable or the mount on the light, allowing the light to fall unrestrained.

 

That's a pretty light load -- if it was me, I'd consider using some ropes and pulleys and I'd just tie off the load to some cleats. I'd probably use 1/4" braided nylon rope.

A secondary consideration would be who has access to the ropes. A bad guy could untie or cut the ropes and cause them to fall. Then an out-of-reach counterweight might be appropriate. Can't give much more advice without seeing a drawing of the application...