Our build thread, renovation and extension
Discussion
Muncher said:
uk66fastback said:
Why would the granite be impractical, I would have thought it would be ideal ...!
I suspect a bit too fragile to mount a vice on or to bash something with a hammer on. Annoyingly the piece of granite around the sink smashed as we moved it, but in truth the sink in it, which was a double was too small for what I wanted anyway.
I just thought it was a good, hard, surface ... I have no idea how 'strong' it would be in your setting
Here's a few photos showing the garage units fitted and 99% complete. Just a bit of painting to do and a vice to fit really.
You will note the staircase is in the "up" position. It raises and lowers powered by 2x 400kg hoists mounted off the steel ridge beam. It does not just pivot at the top, but slides on bearings to retract, these bearings sit on some heavy duty angle iron fixed to the side of the staircase. It probably slides about 1.5m as it goes back up. Each hoist is controlled independently from a control box which you can see laying on the bench to the side. When in the up position it is held on the hoists, albeit very little load is actually on the two wires due to the sliding with the bearings acting as a pivot.
I then have a servo motor controlled from below which rotates a scaffolding bar 90 degrees across the opening to sit under the stairs, so in the event that both hoists somehow simultaneously fail it will drop about 3 inches and sit on the scaffolding bar.
The upstairs of the garage is now just used for storage of infrequently used, large items with all the tools now downstairs. There is a large sink, with a soon to be hot tap and a dehumidifier running to keep the moisture level relatively low.
The only other major change to come is a 2 post lift at the fair end, which will probably go in during the spring. I need to tot up the last few items on my spreadsheet but including all the cupboards, worktops, finishing and lighting it probably cost me about £29k for 55sqm on the ground floor and about 40sqm upstairs.
You will note the staircase is in the "up" position. It raises and lowers powered by 2x 400kg hoists mounted off the steel ridge beam. It does not just pivot at the top, but slides on bearings to retract, these bearings sit on some heavy duty angle iron fixed to the side of the staircase. It probably slides about 1.5m as it goes back up. Each hoist is controlled independently from a control box which you can see laying on the bench to the side. When in the up position it is held on the hoists, albeit very little load is actually on the two wires due to the sliding with the bearings acting as a pivot.
I then have a servo motor controlled from below which rotates a scaffolding bar 90 degrees across the opening to sit under the stairs, so in the event that both hoists somehow simultaneously fail it will drop about 3 inches and sit on the scaffolding bar.
The upstairs of the garage is now just used for storage of infrequently used, large items with all the tools now downstairs. There is a large sink, with a soon to be hot tap and a dehumidifier running to keep the moisture level relatively low.
The only other major change to come is a 2 post lift at the fair end, which will probably go in during the spring. I need to tot up the last few items on my spreadsheet but including all the cupboards, worktops, finishing and lighting it probably cost me about £29k for 55sqm on the ground floor and about 40sqm upstairs.
I have finally sorted all of my photos into one collection showing the house before we moved in to the present day. There are around 5,000 photos once duplicates are removed!
If there's an appetite for it I will see if I can upload them into a gallery, or perhaps work out how to condense them into a short youtube video?
If there's an appetite for it I will see if I can upload them into a gallery, or perhaps work out how to condense them into a short youtube video?
Muncher said:
I have finally sorted all of my photos into one collection showing the house before we moved in to the present day. There are around 5,000 photos once duplicates are removed!
If there's an appetite for it I will see if I can upload them into a gallery, or perhaps work out how to condense them into a short youtube video?
Im in!!If there's an appetite for it I will see if I can upload them into a gallery, or perhaps work out how to condense them into a short youtube video?
Muncher said:
I have finally sorted all of my photos into one collection showing the house before we moved in to the present day. There are around 5,000 photos once duplicates are removed!
If there's an appetite for it I will see if I can upload them into a gallery, or perhaps work out how to condense them into a short youtube video?
Im in as well, whichever is easiest for you, video comparing old V new would be neat, but not the easiest to do.If there's an appetite for it I will see if I can upload them into a gallery, or perhaps work out how to condense them into a short youtube video?
Hoping to tap into the collective PH wisdom here...
The staircase is lifted by two independently controlled hoists, one attached to either string. These are controlled by two separate switches mounted in a control box, which I want to mount on the wall (for the sake of neatness) in the corner of the garage, so at 45 degrees to the line of the stairs.
When raising and lowering either string needs to be kept at pretty much the same level, to prevent the stairs skewing off to one side. Ideally either side needs to be kept +/- 20mm of the other side.
This is pretty difficult to see from the side on, where the controls are located. What I ideally want is some sort of level or indicator that i can mount on the stairs which makes it easy to tell, whether the stairs are going up level, but I am struggling to work out how best to go this.
I want to avoid mounting the control box directly in line with the stairs as this would mean a lot of wires trailing across the work bench and also put me in a position I don't really want to be as the stairs raise and lower.
Any suggestions?
The staircase is lifted by two independently controlled hoists, one attached to either string. These are controlled by two separate switches mounted in a control box, which I want to mount on the wall (for the sake of neatness) in the corner of the garage, so at 45 degrees to the line of the stairs.
When raising and lowering either string needs to be kept at pretty much the same level, to prevent the stairs skewing off to one side. Ideally either side needs to be kept +/- 20mm of the other side.
This is pretty difficult to see from the side on, where the controls are located. What I ideally want is some sort of level or indicator that i can mount on the stairs which makes it easy to tell, whether the stairs are going up level, but I am struggling to work out how best to go this.
I want to avoid mounting the control box directly in line with the stairs as this would mean a lot of wires trailing across the work bench and also put me in a position I don't really want to be as the stairs raise and lower.
Any suggestions?
It's not possible to wire them to one switch as the rate at which the wire spools onto the reel differs depending on how the cable is wrapped around each drum.
I'm not sure how I could set it up so that both pull on both sides at the same time, might be possible with an elaborate setup but that might complicate things.
What happens at the moment is the load alternates between each cable as it rises, but there is a certain amount of middle ground due to the flex of the stairs where both cables are taking "some" load, the problem occurs when one cable rises too much out of sync with the other, takes all of the weight, the other goes slack and it skews off to one side. The key is to keep them in a sort of equilibrium, which ensures a straight and smooth ascent or descent.
I'm not sure how I could set it up so that both pull on both sides at the same time, might be possible with an elaborate setup but that might complicate things.
What happens at the moment is the load alternates between each cable as it rises, but there is a certain amount of middle ground due to the flex of the stairs where both cables are taking "some" load, the problem occurs when one cable rises too much out of sync with the other, takes all of the weight, the other goes slack and it skews off to one side. The key is to keep them in a sort of equilibrium, which ensures a straight and smooth ascent or descent.
Aluminati said:
A single hoist with a tandem bracket would be the solution ? Twin hoists that are never going to work in sync strikes me as somewhat stupid ?
If I had a bar running across the top, with a single cable lifting it and a fixed length cable running down either side to the string this wouldn’t work as the bar would then be below head height as you walked up the stairs.If it were a single rotating bar fixed at ridge level with two cables attached to it I would have the same issue in terms of the cables winding on at different speeds.
The idea behind two hoists was to give individual control to counter any tilting and importantly to give redundancy. The chances of a single hoist or cable failing are slim, the chances of two failing at the same time are incredibly remote.
Is this possible :
Using only 1 of the motors, reposition it further down in the roof space above head height. On the winch cable, put a rigging plate. From that, run 2 lines along the roof to 2 pulleys positioned above the end of the stairs, through them and down to each stringer. You could add a turnbuckle to one line to help with balancing out the 2 lines.
If one winch doesn't have enough power, you can add a 2:1 system. The winch will pull twice as much rope, but with more power. The lowering and raising will be at half speed though.
Using only 1 of the motors, reposition it further down in the roof space above head height. On the winch cable, put a rigging plate. From that, run 2 lines along the roof to 2 pulleys positioned above the end of the stairs, through them and down to each stringer. You could add a turnbuckle to one line to help with balancing out the 2 lines.
If one winch doesn't have enough power, you can add a 2:1 system. The winch will pull twice as much rope, but with more power. The lowering and raising will be at half speed though.
One solution...
Connect the hoist ropes together, end to end... so you have one long rope with a hoist at each end. Then run the rope from the roof, down to a pulley on the left, up to a pulley, across to the other side, down and back up again....
Then the two hoists are sharing the load, and the pulleys should even out the draw.
Connect the hoist ropes together, end to end... so you have one long rope with a hoist at each end. Then run the rope from the roof, down to a pulley on the left, up to a pulley, across to the other side, down and back up again....
[H]__ _________ ___[H]
0 0 0 0
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
O O
Then the two hoists are sharing the load, and the pulleys should even out the draw.
Slackline said:
Is this possible :
Using only 1 of the motors, reposition it further down in the roof space above head height. On the winch cable, put a rigging plate. From that, run 2 lines along the roof to 2 pulleys positioned above the end of the stairs, through them and down to each stringer. You could add a turnbuckle to one line to help with balancing out the 2 lines.
If one winch doesn't have enough power, you can add a 2:1 system. The winch will pull twice as much rope, but with more power. The lowering and raising will be at half speed though.
This is what I am thinking, something like the handbrake cable setup on cars.Using only 1 of the motors, reposition it further down in the roof space above head height. On the winch cable, put a rigging plate. From that, run 2 lines along the roof to 2 pulleys positioned above the end of the stairs, through them and down to each stringer. You could add a turnbuckle to one line to help with balancing out the 2 lines.
If one winch doesn't have enough power, you can add a 2:1 system. The winch will pull twice as much rope, but with more power. The lowering and raising will be at half speed though.
Then redundancy...
You also say your two drums do not pull cable in at the same speed due to how they are loading the wire onto the reel - however if you only put enough wire onto each drum (say 5 meters) then would the two drums not be at the same diameter at the same time? - if you have 1 with 5 meters, and one with 10 meters then the 10 meter one has a larger diameter?
Or if you were to wire the two winches so they ran at the same time, but instead of storing the cable on the winch drum, you use them as a capstan setup - the wire comes from the riser, around the winch drum 3 times, then head off to a counterweight hanging in a corner of the garage?
- One counterweight could probably be a disadvantage as the winch that is slower would then not have a pull and the capstan setup would let that wire slip even more.
- Or have both wires going over one winch drum so that you definitely have one speed, and with a large enough counterweight the winch is not holding the weight of the stairs, it is just moving the stairs.
Tuna said:
One solution...
Connect the hoist ropes together, end to end... so you have one long rope with a hoist at each end. Then run the rope from the roof, down to a pulley on the left, up to a pulley, across to the other side, down and back up again....
Then the two hoists are sharing the load, and the pulleys should even out the draw.
Thanks, it's not about evening out the draw, it is just how the cable winds onto the reel, which is difficult to control precisely. There is also the action of the autobrake on the winch, which I suspect may mean the two would get slightly out of sync over time. With independent control of either hoist at the moment I can at least always adjust each side as necessary.Connect the hoist ropes together, end to end... so you have one long rope with a hoist at each end. Then run the rope from the roof, down to a pulley on the left, up to a pulley, across to the other side, down and back up again....
[H]__ _________ ___[H]
0 0 0 0
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
O O
Then the two hoists are sharing the load, and the pulleys should even out the draw.
It took quite a lot of work to get them working this well, so I'm loathe to majorly redesign the setup unless it makes it perfect. A mate who is great with electronics said he could design something to electronically control the level, but I'd rather not take up a load of time and money if someone can suggest a something very simple which does the job.
I will try and get a video of it in action tonight.
Remove the cable from one winch. Place pulleys under a convenient tread so that the cable from one winch goes down to the stairs, through the first pulley, through another pulley on the other side, then up to the second previously emptied winch. As the winches are operated the cable will move through the pulleys sufficiently to allow for differences in winding speed.
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