Help with Pullys.....

Red Sea Purple Tang

Active member
LightRack2.JPG


Here's the issues: We're finishing the sheet rocking in the fish room and have changed the plan to have the lighting rack on the existing pully system.

- The pully's on the rack (sitting on the tank in the picture...disregard the two verticle PVC pieces) are equally distant from both ends.

- The pully wire with the green arrow, upper right of the picture, will be used to lowering/raising the rack.

- Will this pully orientation allow the rack be raised/lowered?

Any idea from you engineering gurus? :rollface:
 
why not get a chain fall and hook it in the middel and have it hook to the light to lift it up or even a chhep eletric winch
 
Swamp: There isn't enough room to put a 2x4 flat against the duct on the right side and still have the sheet rock flat.

Whiirly: The middle 2x4 over the tank isn't in the center. It's off by about 10 inches.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8274167#post8274167 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Red Sea Purple Tang
Swamp: There isn't enough room to put a 2x4 flat against the duct on the right side and still have the sheet rock flat.

Whiirly: The middle 2x4 over the tank isn't in the center. It's off by about 10 inches.
What about something like a half inch metal bracing of some sort. I just think that it will work better if the weight is evenly distributed.
 
Or....I could just make another rack with support pullys below. While it wouldn't be exactly lifting the rack equal distant from each end, I could weight one side to off set that... ???

LightRack3.JPG
 
What I think he means is to secure the 2x4 horizontally spanning all three joists, left to right, so that you could place your pulleys wherever you need to. You can either drywall around it, like a soffit or make it decorative and leave it exposed. Would a 1x4 fit under the duct? That might be sufficient depending on the weight. If it's too heavey for that, perhaps small angle iron.

What's the dimension from the bottom of the duct to the bottom of the joist?
 
Well I can see you running into a problem with this design. There is nothing to make both sides go up at the same time. Most likely the right side will be at the ceiling before the left starts going up. You need to have the pull point come from the center or better have 2 seperate pull points.

Something like this maybe
98292LightRack3.JPG
 
What I would do is get rid of the eyes on the ceiling. Attach the ends of two ropes directly to the light at the two different points. Two pullies directly above the attachment points. thread the rope on the left through the pully above it and then through the pully for the right side as well as the rope for the right side. You can then tie these ropes together. This will keep the light level when lifting/lowereing. This is how the cords on window blinds work.

HTH
Fuppets
 
Well the point of the eye in the ceiling and the pully at the lights is it will reduce the weight when lifting it by half. If weight is not a problem then its no problem doing as fuppets suggests.
 
Make it easy on yourself....get a bicycle hoist system...less than $50 and your in like flint, they have a weight ratio of 100#'s......here is a shot of mine.....HTH.

DSC03596.jpg
 
Rich, that's the same advice I was just going to post.
I paid $15 @ Menards 2 weeks ago for the same pulley set-up. It was on sale, $20 normal price.
Mine is for a Kayak instead of a bike tho.
 
I have that same set-up. Bike thing at Target. The rack never lifted all together though. The right side always went up first.

Anyway, now that we're sheet rocking the ceiling, there's no where to anchor the hardware.
 
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