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Castor recommendations for a 250kg flightcase?


Stuart91

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I've got a ridiculously heavy toolcase, which weighs approx 250kg when fully laden. The standard castors that came with it were just fine for wheeling around the workshop, but when we have taken it out to the occasional on-site job the castors are not up to the job of travelling over rough tarmac etc. I tried putting some large castors with inflatable rubber tyres on it, but they have had a very negative effect on stability, and the rubber tyres have enough grip to make it quite difficult to rotate them. (E.g. if you have to try and start it moving with the wheels pointing anywhere other than the direction of travel.

 

I know that many flightcasses - large format analogue consoles for example - tend to use standard flightcase castors and just put six or eight of them on rather than four. I suspect that this might make it a bit more difficult to negotiate steep ramps.On the other hand the weight seems to be destroying standard castors in pretty short order. I've had a look at some of the usual suspects (Machine Mart, Northern Tool etc.) for heavier duty castors, but nothing's jumped out at me as being the perfect solution.

 

I'm curious to hear what anyone else has done to get round a similar problem?

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Not being humorous Stuart but a second or even third toolbox is the answer. At something like twice the weight of the bigger analogue desks around today (52 channel Legend 3000 = 114Kg) 250Kg is a forklift job, not a castor selection problem.

 

If stability is difficult with a weight even approaching that much I make sure I am nowhere near it at least.

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To combat TR you'd want to consider a hard tread and a larger diameter wheel if splitting the load isn't practical - although advisable!

 

Rubber on ali with plain or teflon sleeved bearings clearly won't be able to take the abuse, and even some of the larger offerings from Penn / Adam Hall don't look practical, with the exception of W0999. I'd consider the BZMM Series from BIL with a nylon wheel, 125mm / 150mm diameter, and perhaps a two fixed and two swivel arrangement.

 

http://www.bil-castors-and-wheels.co.uk/

 

What do you keep in your toolbox, gold bullion?

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I'm sure I've struggled with an Avo rack in the past that came in at over 200kg, and as for some of Autograph's "daddy" racks... Presumably you've tried the bigger flightcase manufacturers? They will no doubt have to use such wheels all the time.
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Not being humorous Stuart but a second or even third toolbox is the answer. At something like twice the weight of the bigger analogue desks around today (52 channel Legend 3000 = 114Kg) 250Kg is a forklift job, not a castor selection problem.

 

If stability is difficult with a weight even approaching that much I make sure I am nowhere near it at least.

 

The 114kg is the weight of the console without case, dogbox and cabling. I would guess that a fully flightcased H3k is much nearer the 200kg mark, if not slightly over 200kg.

 

Yes, it might be easier to split the toolbox into multiple cases, however they're will be castors out there. I mean take an arena dolly of v-dosc for example. We've had stacks 4 high come off the back of an artic before without forks and although it's a pig to do, it's definatly possible. And given that a v-dosc box weighs around 110kg iirc, thats a 450kg stack on castors.

 

You might want to contact Sigma Fabrications (formally SSE manufacturing), as they were the company who produced the specific V-dosc dolly's we had through. However, the best bet would still probably be to split the tools into two or three cases!

 

Just my two pence,

 

James

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I would guess that a fully flightcased H3k is much nearer the 200kg mark, if not slightly over 200kg.

Closer to 350kg actually, plus the PSUs

 

Ahh but the PSU's are in a different case though aren't they? I was talking about the H3k console case by itself.

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Ahh but the PSU's are in a different case though aren't they? I was talking about the H3k console case by itself.

That's what I meant by 350kg, plus the PSUs. The PSU case is another 80kg (our PSUs are lighter than than the standard Midas ones). 350kg is plenty heavy, certainly heavy enough to break my big toe!

 

I would think the quickest way to solve the toolcase problem would be to just add more wheels. Cases can easily accommodate the weight if they have a wheel in the middle of each side, as well as the ones in the corners.

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Even Terralec can supply (by post) a set of castors to take 650kilos a set of four. You should have a fixed set at one end and a castoring set at the other so that you have some hope of steering this beast. Possibly put four wheels at one end and four braked castors at the other.

 

HOWEVER this is one huge flightcase and I'd consider very carefully getting it reduced in size and weight so that it's a safe load to manouver. Getting this monster run you over would be career limiting.

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Thanks for all the replies.

 

The current "form factor", whilst heavy, is proving to be convenient and isn't too much of a nightmare to handle. It's very useful having everything together in one case.

 

I think the stability issue is mainly due to the castors that are on it just now - they have pneumatic tyres and my hunch is that they have just too much "give" in them. When trying to turn the case, the tyre compresses and the case begins to tilt. It's a problem that can be worked round with careful handling but I'd rather sort out a proper solution and eliminate it completely.

 

Lots of useful links which I will chase up. One thing I'm curious about it what castor weight capacity I should aim for. If, for the sake of round numbers, I have a 200kg case, will fitting four 50kg capacity castors be a bad idea? I'm inclined to think it'll put too much weight on them, especially when negotiating inclines and kerbs. On the other hand, I don't want to overspend ridiculously. Can anyone recommend a decent weight capacity to go for? Half the the total weight? Or more?

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Ahh but the PSU's are in a different case though aren't they? I was talking about the H3k console case by itself.

That's what I meant by 350kg, plus the PSUs. The PSU case is another 80kg (our PSUs are lighter than than the standard Midas ones). 350kg is plenty heavy, certainly heavy enough to break my big toe!

 

I would think the quickest way to solve the toolcase problem would be to just add more wheels. Cases can easily accommodate the weight if they have a wheel in the middle of each side, as well as the ones in the corners.

 

Ohhh okay! My apologies, I had only skim read it and obviously got the wrong idea. Thats quite a significant weight in the flightcase and accessories although looking at it, it makes sense given the large numbers of people it takes to get an H3k down a ramp safely!

 

And yes, 350kg is defiantly a heavy case!

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Thanks for all the replies.

 

The current "form factor", whilst heavy, is proving to be convenient and isn't too much of a nightmare to handle. It's very useful having everything together in one case.

 

 

But no more useful than having 4 65Kg cases side by side.

 

If you're really hell-bent on wheeling a quarter of a tonne around in a single case, then look at other industries, at a guess, I'd look at Formula One Mechanics Toolkits, probably very heavy, travel the world, and are usually loaded in and out of Artics.

 

Just a thought.

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