One of my least favorite chores is pulling rotten
fence footings out of the ground. Rather than continue
to dead-lift these concrete chunks, I've decided to
put a little crane to that task.

I had a hydraulic cart left over from another
project.
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/w...5531_200365531

I replaced its manual lifter with a electrically
powered version a while ago:
http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/...es/HydCart.txt
http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/...rtOverview.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/...ydCartLeft.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/...ydCartMech.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/...artRelease.jpg

Now I'm hot-rodding that cart. The tiny wheels got
replaced with big, soft pneumatic wheels for use in
a mushy back yard. The electrically operated jack
mechanism got upgraded with a lower mass connecting
rod and an oillite bearing at the crankshaft end.
As a result, it lifts a 290 lb test load 22.5 inches
in 25 seconds, a performance improvement of 4x the
first version.

Here is a 4.6 MB movie of the mechanism raising the table
way faster than I *ever* could:

http://mysite.verizon.net/reswoead/id4.html
(Click on 'Fence Cart Video')

Next, I'm gonna bolt the little crane mechanism to the top
and come up with a battery box.

--Winston

--

Chance flavors the prepared mime. _The New Urban Cookbook_ January, 2010