[Tlauden]

well due to space restrictions i cant have a table layout either perminent or one that can be set up when i want it. so im going to do the next best thing i can think of, suspend it from the ceiling using a winch, rope, and some pulley's. im going to try and accomplish this in the basement since the studs are exposed and that makes pulley attachment super easy. i plan on gathering the neccesary supplies this week while im out and about and start construction on it my next day off. im really hoping it will turn out like what i plan and not go horribly wrong any thoughts or ideas? i've never personally seen it done though i've heard OF it before. ill post plenty of pics once i get working

this is something like i wanna get to use as the winch
http://www.harborfreight.com/2000-lb-capacity-geared-winch-5798.html

i think this will "ratchet" up and down it doesnt look like it has the free spool option. anyone agree

 

[georgieboytraveler2]

Just a thought ===== I have the same situation and got an all electric hoist for 110 volt that powers up and also powers down for about 80 bucks on epay. I mounted it on the garage wall and then set things up for a 4 point lift on the 5x9 layout === a little more explanation the new member board I posted earlier. I don't have any pics of it yet, but will try to post later this week. I also used folding metal horses to fasten under the layout frame.

 

[tjcruiser]

Tlauden,

The winch idea is fine. I was thinking of a tennis-net type winch before I clicked on your link ... essentially the same sort of a thing.

A couple of factors will be critical to pull this off successfully ...

1. Cabling run to corners and/or midpoints of the layout ... it's important that they all feed into the winch (or common attachment point) at the same rate. That'll work OK if they all run vertically to small pulleys above their lifting point. But you want to avoid the cables running on any angles that vary between lift points.

2. Lightness and stiffness of the layout board. Obviously, you don't want it too heavy. I'm gonna throw out a suggestion that I've made before to others, but one that I've never actually used myself ... so take it with a grain of salt! Make your layout board by gluing up a sandwich of something like 1/4" plywood, 1.5" of styrene foam (pink stuff), and another 1/4" plywood. The foam will separate the skins much like the web of an I-beam, and the resulting panel will be much stiffer than a comparable 3/4" sheet of ply, and yet considerably lighter. Somewhere in the forum, I ran some simple engineering calcs to do an actual stiffness-to-weight comparison ... the sandwich layup has some clear advantages in a floating / lifting setup like you envision.

Cheers,

TJ

 

[tjcruiser]

Found the calcs from another thread ...

If lightweight is important, you can achieve a very stiff and light panel by using thin "skins" (1/4" MDF, for example) fully glued and bonded to BOTH sides of rigid foam, say 2" thick or so. I.e., you're building a structural I-beam of sorts, with the working flanges (the MDF skin) separated away far away from a neutral axis by core or web. It's important that all internall panel-to-panel joints of the foam are glued to each other, too.

Here's an interested engineering-calc example ...

A "sandwich" of 1/4" MDF, 2"' foam, and 1/4" MDF has 18-times the stiffness of a single-skin 3/4" sheet of MDF alone ... 18-times!

A "sandwich" of 1/8" MDF, 2" foam, and 1/8" MDF has 8-times the stiffness of a single-skin 3/4" sheet of MDF alone, at essentially 1/3 the weight!

So ... go make a sandwich!

TJ

 

[Tlauden]

thanks guys, and i do like the sandwich idea, i think i will do this if it makes it 1/3 of the weight right off the bat. i planned at attaching at the four corners and am worried about the center sagging. do you think a quick frame underneath would be worth it or not?

 

[Reckers]

Tlauden,

I think it would definitely be worth it. When your layout is hanging 100% of the time, it will naturally develop curvature. Putting a couple of 2 x 4's beneath it and running eye-bolts thru them to support your layout will help immensely.

Also....consider this. If you attempt to lift from 4 points simultaneously, you'll have a difficult time of it---your ropes/cables will stretch or change balance and generally be a PITA. Instead, consider trying to lift from two points. Put eyebolts through your overhead beams above all 4 corners as well as the boards beneath the table-surface. Start with the left side and run cable from board corner up, through the overhead eyebolt, across above the left edge to the second left-side eyebolt, and down to the table's other left corner. If you now tug the center of that cable up there between the beams, both left corners will rise in unison. Do the same at the other end and you have two pull-points instead of 4. Find a way to link them securely---a central ring both cables pass through?----and you have one pull-point for all 4 corners. Tug it and all four corners rise in level unison.

 

[georgieboytraveler2]

My suspended layout weight about 350# and is lifted at 4 points thru a pulley system to a common junction where all 4 aircraft grade cable comes together. I wish I had thought of the idea of using the 2 points, as that sound great, and should keep everything in a level state. I have had to adjust the cables several times to get them to all pull at the same level and time. My table base is 1/2" plywood with a 1x4 frame work, as there are several levels on it and the 1x4 system is adjustable to keep the grades at a uniform %. Under this framework. I installed 2 2x4x10' long under the entire length and equidistant from the sides towards the center. Then I made a large X from corner to corner and basically used where the X crossed the 2x4 under the layout to put long eye bolts thru and then used a piece of 1 1/4" flat steel to go across the 2x4's and the eye bolt went thru it with double locking nuts. I think that the eye bolts were 10' long. Then I used heavy S hooks to fasten the cable to and was able to hook this into the eye = this makes it possible to unhook the cables after it is set on the folding legs or sawhorses and run the cables back up out of the way and cover the eye up with a small building. I also found that I had to add weight to the cable just above the S hook to keep the cable from coiling up and very hard to get back down to hook up. I used lead weights of about 2 or 3 pounds and ran the cable thru them and let them rest on top of the S hook.
I used a powered winch = both up and down = as I found too many of the others didn't have an easy way to lower them except arm strength and I don't trust myself with that. I found it the on ebay, but Harbor Freight I think carries them also and I think it was a 400# capacity with direct lift or 800 with using the pulley and hooking the end back at the power source.

I will attempt to get some pics loaded up shortly = but several doctor appts come up this afternoon = so maybe the next day or so.

 

[tjcruiser]

I would suggest NOT lifting from the corners, but rather from points some distance in from the edge, with some cantilever overhang. I.e., if 4'x8' sheet, set up lift points in a rectangle config about 3.75' x 6' ... i.e., about 1' of overhang on each "long" end. The shortened lift span (6' vs. 8') will reduce in-the-air deflections considerably.

Again, all lift cables should run dead-vertical to pulleys, then from there in a PARALLEL path to a common pull cable. If so, the "stroke" or pull-rate on each should be identical, prompty an easy, even lift.

TJ

 

[Tlauden]

thanks guys on all the help with this, i am getting alot of great ideas on how to do this and i plan on putting alot of them to use, i have everything figured out EXCEPT the pulley system and i believe i have a pretty good idea in mind, tonight when i get home ill do a quick sketch on paint and post it to see if i got the concept right with the two point lifting

 

[georgieboytraveler2]

suspended from the ceiling

I was able to get a few shots of the layout and the pulley/lifting system this afternoon late. Hopefully they will come out decent enough for you to see. I also have hooks that I can use to fasten the eyes together with and then I can release the tension of the cables and the layout is still held in place with the gridwork on the ceiling. I still have some more to load up, but will do them on another post,
Questions or comments welcome, and I will try to answer them.

 

[Tlauden]

very nice i like the setup! but looking at your cables where they attach to the winch it looks like your using four independent cables? hows that work for you? i was planning on doing reckers suggested but the four independant cables seem lke a simplier setup.

like i said i know exactly what im going to do for the layout table but am still torn between the cable/pulley system. guess ill get enough supplies for the more detailed setup and see where i end up. im planning on going friday to get some supplies and then go from there hopefully have some pics up by the afternoon

edit:also what size is your layout and what scale are you running?

 

[tjcruiser]

GeorgieBoy,

Thanks for posting the pics. That's a beefy winch. I like the way you have your four (or so) cables running into one common coupling, and that common lead tailing into the winch.

I also like the weights on the ends of the tail ends of the cables, so that they have some down-tension when you winch-up without the layout table attached. Clever, there, keeping winch-tension up as needed.

And, finally, the use of the folding sawhorses for tuck-up-out-of-the-way legs seems just perfect. Easy off-the-shelf solution.

Thanks for sharing!

TJ

 

[georgieboytraveler2]

suspended system for layout

I had a few more pics of the system and thought I would try to upload some more tonight = so here we go again with 10 more. (my other sites won't handle more than 10 pics at a time, so I figure the same here) These were all taken at about the same time of day and show things from different angles. Sorry, but I have done little in the way of scenery at this point and my next project will be the changing over to DCC from the block system.

I would want to use heavier cable if I used the 2 point lifting method that was told about earlier, but I still think it might be an easier system to use, but the drawback might be that it won't pull up as close to the ceiling as my 4 point system does. I am easily able to walk under it with a standard 8' ceiling in my garage.

 

[tjcruiser]

Larry,

Great pics / stuff. Nice control system. Lots of buttons! I really like the way you designed this all to fit within a drawer that lifts with the table. Clever.

In considering a lifting table, we were all talking earlier (above) about the importance of equal "rate of pull" on each of the required lifting cables. You had said that you fiddled with this a bit in the early debugging of your table. Which has me intrigued about the cable runs as shown in pic # 2724 ...

Your cables go from the table up vertically to pulleys, and from there each runs "on a hypotenuse" to a common shackle and common pull to the winch. Seems logical. However ...

As I envision what happens when the winch pulls the common lead and shackle, and the table rises (or lowers), the shackle moves horizontally in space, and the geometry of the "hypotenuse triangle" of each cable changes as the shackle move further away (or closer to) the pulleys. And, as this happens, the rate-of-pull of each of the cables (as it translates to its vertical section) is not the same througout.

I suspect that you realized this, and fiddled with the geometry such that the difference are miniscule and acceptable ... so I'm certainly not attempting to be critical here.

But for anyone considering a lifting system on a new table, I'd suggest re-routing the cables through a different configuration of pulleys such that all of the cable runs feeding into the common shackle are exactly parallel to each other at all times. This will ensure a uniform rate-of-pull on the vertical cable sections.

The crude sketch below gives a fuzzy idea of what I'm thinking. You're looking at the cable run in a horizontal plane up near the ceiling, with the table below shown as a simple rectangle.

Thoughts?

TJ

 

[georgieboytraveler2]

raise that table!!

TJ ===

I was just getting ready to krap out and thought I would take one last look at the emails and came across yours.

You have an extremely good point, and I am not an engineer so it was by trial and error on some of the points. One thing that does enter into the whole thing is that the distance the main line moves is only half of the distance that the lifting lines do, so it was important to move the shackle as close to the motor as I could, thus leaving a longer distance on the lifting cables and so the angle does change, it is very little. The angles are relatively close, because I took the lines from the closest end of the table all the way to the back (where the other pair of lines came up) and then installed the pulley leading back to the shackle. This makes those lines quite a bit longer, but they still lift at the same rate. I didn't think about it, but I could have located those pulleys closer to the outside of the framework which everything mounts on, and that would have made the angles very similar. I didn't turn any of the pictures, but if that one would be rotated 1/4 turn so it would be looking up at the system, it would be easier to visualize. I was going to turn the computer sideways, but found that I could crank my neck enough to check it out
Anyway === good thinking and it was my first try at doing this, so I am open to any suggestions. But being a hard headed old man, I probably won't change it much, if any, as it does seem to work pretty good and I have had quite a few comments from those who have inspected it. For safety purpose, I thought about what I needed to do to be sure it may NOT fall while suspended, I used adjustable hooks to fasten between the eyes on the framework and the eyes on the layout and then released the pressure on the cables and allowed it all to hang from the hooks. Its kind of pain in the a== to get the ladder out to be able to set and remove the hooks, but I feel a bit more secure that way and it doesn't stretch out the steel cable that way.
I need to come up with a better idea for that part ?!?!?!?!?!?!

I forgot to include a picture of the overseer of this project ==== but not the BOSS!!

The plastic guard around the outside of the table frame has kept several errant locos from meeting the floor ===== especially when the grand kids came to try and run gramps train I had to have it happen once to make me realize that it could and I needed to do something to arrest that!! Picked them up from the local grocery store trash bin and then asked for others when they got thru with them. Also helps to be working there as a maintenance whatever and rather on my own terms and time!! Nice to be retired???? and then work on your own terms!!

 

[georgieboytraveler2]

Tlauden --- I was just going thru some of the posts this evening and thought I would check and see how you are coming along with your setup? I failed to answer a couple of your questions earlier in that this is an HO gauge layout and is about 5 1/2' wide and 9 1/2' long and weight is around 350#'s at this time. The capacity of the electric winch is at least 800#'s and may be a bit more, I am not sure what the total capacity is - gotta read the statements on the motor base. And forgot to mention that the winch has a 5' extension control cable on it for ease of operation = makes it a whole lot easier to use when it is at waist height to grab.
Since I didn't catch that this was an N gauge site before my rant, I am guessing that you are going to do yours in N?

 

[Tlauden]

sorry i havent posted for awhile, been pretty busy lol. anyway im slowly gathering all the items i will need to pull off this task. ive been holding out on buying any kind of winch assembly due to the fact i dont know if i want powered or manual i guess ill have to decide sooner or later though. i gotta hold off on buying some items though because the day i went to the hobby shop i spent a little bit more than i planned on oh well it was worth it ill keep this updated as i accomplish more

 

[georgieboytraveler2]

I understand that is part of the disease = known as Model Railroading = and last I heard was there was no known cure, so I guess you will have to learn to live with it ==== like many of us do!!!!!!!!!!
Keep us posted!

 

[ElSimon]

My son had a 4' x 8' HO layout that the only space for it was outside in the carport. I setup a 4 pulley system to raise and lower it. By hand. Not even a crude winch. Here is what we found:
1. Being outside the track oxidyzed fast. It was brass track.
2. It got dusty easily.
3. Even though it was only 4' x 8' my son was too light to raise it up! Now think how that effected him the first time he tried to lower it! I only wish I had a video camera for that show.
4. I used ropes in the four corners. This was sufficient for his layout. But ropes stretch, cables can rust..

I would suggest:
1. Retractable legs. That is a must.
2. A cover. This can be wood or a plastic sheet. Keep the track covered and clean.
3. Don't make it too easy for the kids or grandkids without supervision.
4. Trial and error. Test some ideas and go from there. You can always beef it up where and if you need to.
5. Don't over think it. I do that too often and it takes me 2-3 times as long to do it.
6. Post pictures as you go so we can chime in with help as we see it.

El Simon

 

[Big Ed]

Tlauden --- I was just going thru some of the posts this evening and thought I would check and see how you are coming along with your setup? I failed to answer a couple of your questions earlier in that this is an HO gauge layout and is about 5 1/2' wide and 9 1/2' long and weight is around 350#'s at this time. The capacity of the electric winch is at least 800#'s and may be a bit more, I am not sure what the total capacity is - gotta read the statements on the motor base. And forgot to mention that the winch has a 5' extension control cable on it for ease of operation = makes it a whole lot easier to use when it is at waist height to grab.
Since I didn't catch that this was an N gauge site before my rant, I am guessing that you are going to do yours in N?

This is a site for all gauges (or scales) whatever you prefer to call it.