Adapting a winch to lower the torque

[BLocke]

Can anybody help?

 

I want to adapt some winches in my theatre which at present can only be operated by hand using a cranking arm (they have a safe working limit of 450kg).

 

I want to adapt them so that I can use a drill to lower the lighting bars (thus saving my poor arms!). However I am led to believe that at the moment the torque is too high and therefore I need some kind of gear on it that would lower the torque and therefore mean a drill would be able to turn it.

 

Has anyone got any suggestions, if I were to purchase a gear and bolt it to the casing of the present winch casing and put a chain set between the gear and the turning bolt would this work or is it not that easy?

 

Any suggestions? Anybody done a similar thing? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers

Ben

[Ynot]

Hmmm...

Hi and welcome to the Blue Room.

 

Personally I don't feel at all qualified to answer the question itself, BUT what I will say is what we usually say to such queries - call in a local professional to assess your situation on the ground. We can theorise (and some will) but no-one will give firm practical advice without actually seeing what's in the grid there. (If they do, I believe they'd be foolish in doing so!)

[Jivemaster]

I have seen it done on the winches inside a 50 metre carpark lighting tower (30 turns per inch lift I was told!) BUT the power drill used was intended for correctly matching to the winch and had the necessary stand and connections. The power tool was also carried by two people.

 

I doubt that you will find a power drill capable of doing the job, If you do then you will have to hold the torque while the motor turns.

 

Properly powered winches is a better route but at a fantasy budget!

[Andrew C]

Flints (I think) used to list a winch system powered by a portable drill type thing. Similar to the paint/plaster stirrers sold by Screwfix. Not see it in the catalog for a while though.

[Tom]

The winches in the Courtyard Theatre at West Yorkshire Playhouse have been adapted (or not) to be powered by a drill. You could ask them. (the people who work their, not the winches)

[Duncan Wood]

Can anybody help?

 

I want to adapt some winches in my theatre which at present can only be operated by hand using a cranking arm (they have a safe working limit of 450kg).

 

I want to adapt them so that I can use a drill to lower the lighting bars (thus saving my poor arms!). However I am led to believe that at the moment the torque is too high and therefore I need some kind of gear on it that would lower the torque and therefore mean a drill would be able to turn it.

 

Has anyone got any suggestions, if I were to purchase a gear and bolt it to the casing of the present winch casing and put a chain set between the gear and the turning bolt would this work or is it not that easy?

 

Any suggestions? Anybody done a similar thing? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers

Ben

 

 

You can normally solve this by buying a big enough drill :-)

[John Jones]

Can anybody help?

 

I want to adapt some winches in my theatre which at present can only be operated by hand using a cranking arm (they have a safe working limit of 450kg).

 

I want to adapt them so that I can use a drill to lower the lighting bars (thus saving my poor arms!). However I am led to believe that at the moment the torque is too high and therefore I need some kind of gear on it that would lower the torque and therefore mean a drill would be able to turn it.

 

Has anyone got any suggestions, if I were to purchase a gear and bolt it to the casing of the present winch casing and put a chain set between the gear and the turning bolt would this work or is it not that easy?

 

Any suggestions? Anybody done a similar thing? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers

Ben

 

Most hand winches are designed/ built for hand operation only- best to check if power drills can be used with the winches before you start this. You will probably find that you cannot get the manufacturers OK.

Some winches (Pile winds for example can be driven with a power drill

John Jones

[tokm]

I've seen this done a few times. Using all manner/brand of winch. All they did at each place was buy a reasonably powerful mains drill, a chuck adaptor to clip on socket set heads, a suitable sized socket head and away they went! When it came to taking the bar back out again, they'd use the drill to fly it out then use the handle if they couldn't get it to the required position accurately with the drill.

 

If somethings turntable by hand, surely a power drill's not going to really mind :o.

 

Excuse me if I'm missing something, but surely using a drills not going to hurt the winch? As all your doing is essentially the same as your doing every time you use the handle, but faster.. The only damage I could envisage occurring is the drill burning out if its underpowered and thus being thrashed all the time.

 

Ben, may I ask, what made you think your going to need something to lower the amount of torque required before a drill would work?

 

T

[Dmills]

Excuse me if I'm missing something, but surely using a drills not going to hurt the winch? As all your doing is essentially the same as your doing every time you use the handle, but faster..

 

That 'faster' can be important, think sleeve bearings on the input side, there is a lot of difference between maybe 40 RPM by hand and a couple of hundred when under power.

 

If I was going there, I think I would use a right angled compressed air ratchet driver, loads of torque and easier to hold then a drill (due to having effectively a long side handle), also these tend to have a much lower shaft speed, but I would want to convince myself that the winch gearing and brake were up to the job first.

 

Regards, Dan.

[BLocke]

Thanks everyone for your ideas and suggestions. The reason that I thought that I would need a gear to lower the torque was because my predecessor said he had had a go with a regular drill but to no avail. I will enquire with him what he used and perhaps one of your suggestions might overcome the problem.

Will also check with the company that do our rig tests and see what they would feel about me using some of your suggestions.

Will keep you posted...any other ideas in the mean time would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers

Ben

[Chas at Halls]

Hi there,

 

We [ and apparently some other manufacturers...] make 'dual input' manual winches, specifically designed to enable the operator to use a drill to drive the load up or down. The drill needs to be 'chunky' enough to generate sufficient torque on the input shaft and this can be an issue if you're trying to adapt an existing manual winch. We have recently seen the remnants of such an experiment, where the old input shaft was effectively 'milled' round by the slipping chuck & socket and the venue technicians couldn't get the handle back on. Also, luckily nobody broke a wrist in the process....

 

If you call in to our office, we'd be happy to give you some numbers on what sort of drill to use, fittings to attach etc if you're still keen to pursue the idea. There are some quick mechanical calcs involved to get the power input/load/shaft dia. correct.

 

Our Dual input winches start at about £750.00. Cost of a broken wrist.....? Please be careful.

 

Chas at Halls

[BLocke]

Hi there,

 

We [ and apparently some other manufacturers...] make 'dual input' manual winches, specifically designed to enable the operator to use a drill to drive the load up or down. The drill needs to be 'chunky' enough to generate sufficient torque on the input shaft and this can be an issue if you're trying to adapt an existing manual winch. We have recently seen the remnants of such an experiment, where the old input shaft was effectively 'milled' round by the slipping chuck & socket and the venue technicians couldn't get the handle back on. Also, luckily nobody broke a wrist in the process....

 

If you call in to our office, we'd be happy to give you some numbers on what sort of drill to use, fittings to attach etc if you're still keen to pursue the idea. There are some quick mechanical calcs involved to get the power input/load/shaft dia. correct.

 

Our Dual input winches start at about £750.00. Cost of a broken wrist.....? Please be careful.

 

Chas at Halls

 

 

Thanks for that Chas

 

I've actually got another company having a look at it at the moment but they should be getting back to me in the next few days. If they don't come up trumps I might be giving you a call.

 

Thanks a lot

 

Ben

[drsound]

It's not at all uncommon in industry to use a power drill to perform an operation that is designed to be carried out manually. This of course requires the usual written safe system of work which I'm sure you would do.

 

You would need to source or commission a gearbox of a ratio suitable to reduce the speed of your input (drill) to the maximum speed of the winch input as advised by the manufacturer. The best and safest method would be to have a flange on the output side that can be bolted to your winches and a clamp arrangement on the input side to hold the drill in place. I would advise strongly against attempting to hold the drill by hand as the kick back following a stoppage could easily cause you some harm.

 

Bear in mind that this is a reasonably complex bit of engineering to do reliably and safely and shouldn't be attempted unless you have someone competent to do the calcs.