Beryl wrote:
Dave__67 wrote:
On May 16, 10:41 pm, wrote:
You could go back in time and use what my granddaddy did, wire cable,
pulleys and boxes of sand and busted concrete. Lasted longer than he
did, which is more than you can say for a lot of the spring
counterbalances these days. Pure profit centers for the door
installers, they KNOW they'll be back.

I could do that. I've already replaced several springs.

Not sure torsion springs would
be an improvement anyway. When they go SPROING, there's a whole lot
more energy involved.

But it's well constrained. I've had unconstrained tension springs go.
Pretty exciting! That was before I learned about restraining cables.


Did he work out a way to lessen the force as the door went up?

I put hanging weights on my sectional garage doors, instead of the
extension springs that came with the kits. Part of the weight is big
steel pipe filled with scrap metal. The rest is a few feet of heavy
chain that hangs below the pipe. As the doors go up, the chain piles on
the floor.

Cute. I'm thinking about a series of stacked weights that would
progressively be stopped by bumpers. As the stack lowered with the door
opening, the top most one would bumper-off 1st, then the 2nd one, etc.
There might be enough different-ness in it to motivate me G.

Bob