Motorized workstation crane recommendations?

We're looking to add a crane for loading bars into our saws vs forklifts. Material is 7-11" dia. 6061 bars, 12', so max capacity needed would be ~1350lbs.
Not familiar with cranes, so I did a quick Google but every builder I checked with wanted me to fill out paperwork before they would give me a ballpark.

I see one on McMaster for $13k that is the right size and capacity, but looks to be unmotorized so that's my only reference.
What price would should I expect for a 3axis motorized gantry, 2k capacity, 20' L x 15' W x 10' H travels? Who should be first on my list?

So fill in the boxes in the online form....what's so hard about that eh ?

Having bought Gorbel jib cranes from McMaster ... and then bought a Gorbel jib crane from a dealer, I can offer the following:

a) Price can be a lot cheaper. My Gorbel dealer was shockingly cheap. Way cheaper than Spanco. It very much seems like shop cranes are close to a commodity and ultra aggressive. Complete crane for just a few dollars per pound of steel. Seems like a heck of a deal to me.
b) Lead time and complexity in dealing with somebody other than McMaster is orders of magnitude more.

Gorbel seems to be the go-to for small cranes around here. The advice seems to be that for light loads it's often not worth having motorized XY, just manual for moving it around and an electric hoist. My neighbors just got a 2-ton Gorbel gantry (which can roll around under load incidentally) and the manual movement of the trolley is very smooth and easy.

DanielG said:

Gorbel seems to be the go-to for small cranes around here. The advice seems to be that for light loads it's often not worth having motorized XY, just manual for moving it around and an electric hoist. My neighbors just got a 2-ton Gorbel gantry (which can roll around under load incidentally) and the manual movement of the trolley is very smooth and easy.

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With his workstation setup, I agree. We have 25' span 2 ton jib crane and it requires some effort to drag the boom around. Especially when the hook is close to the rotation point. I have a self made 1 ton 20' span bridge crane at home and it is pretty easy to move loads on the hook. 1350 lbs on a professional small workstation crane seems reasonable to drag by hand.

We did have some nasty raised burrs on the Gorbel. You could get over them with load, but it made things jerky. We got permission in writing to smooth them out and it is now pretty smooth. Probably pays to dial those sort of things in after installation.

Thanks for the input, I have reached out to some Gorbel distributors.
I got one quote back $26k, seems high to me but I have no experience with these systems so maybe that's totally reasonable.

I agree with you Daniel it should be a light enough load to move by hand. I like the motorized 3 axis because the crane will be above the saw tables and material cassettes, and it wouldn't be easy for the operator to climb around all that while they push or pull the load around.

Knowing who could be pushing and pulling on the load in proximity to other people and expensive equipment also makes me nervous... I hope a motorized trolley will keep that kind of excitement to a minimum.

GiroDyno said:

Thanks for the input, I have reached out to some Gorbel distributors.
I got one quote back $26k, seems high to me but I have no experience with these systems so maybe that's totally reasonable.

I agree with you Daniel it should be a light enough load to move by hand. I like the motorized 3 axis because the crane will be above the saw tables and material cassettes, and it wouldn't be easy for the operator to climb around all that while they push or pull the load around.

Knowing who could be pushing and pulling on the load in proximity to other people and expensive equipment also makes me nervous... I hope a motorized trolley will keep that kind of excitement to a minimum.

Click to expand...

I think you'll get into real money to motorize it. And even more to motorize it smoothly. And no matter what, you have inertia of the thing you are lifting. On / off bridge cranes are scary to run. Especially so when they run into the runway stop at full speed. So you are looking at VFD controlled motors all around.

Maybe armor the surrounding area so destruction with the battering ram of saw stock is limited?

I purchased my latest Gorbel crane from Southern Minnesota Inspection. They were aggressive on their pricing and good to deal with. I am not sure if Gorbel has geographical area limits for their dealers. If not, I would give them a try:

GiroDyno said:

Thanks for the input, I have reached out to some Gorbel distributors.
I got one quote back $26k, seems high to me but I have no experience with these systems so maybe that's totally reasonable.

I agree with you Daniel it should be a light enough load to move by hand. I like the motorized 3 axis because the crane will be above the saw tables and material cassettes, and it wouldn't be easy for the operator to climb around all that while they push or pull the load around.

Knowing who could be pushing and pulling on the load in proximity to other people and expensive equipment also makes me nervous... I hope a motorized trolley will keep that kind of excitement to a minimum.

Click to expand...

As has just been said - a "soft start" would be a very well received option on a motorized gantry. Mine doesn't have that, and I wish it did. Not sure how they doo that? Are they able to use just one soft start for all 3 axi's, or doo they install 3 softs? That would be getting even more $$$.

One other thing about a motorized gantry (and this may not apply to you) is that if you are trying to hit the hole in a lathe chuck or whatnot, a little more finesse is a good thing. The hard motor can be a bit too aggressive sometimes. Manual might not get you quite where you want to go maybe - as that could need you to slightly overshoot your destination to pull the trolly into place. And maybe a soft motor could be the wiggle room in the middle. But at much added cost, and much slower actuation.

For a light load, and a new(er) unit (that rolls nice) I would think that the manual X/Y would be sufficient for most apps.

I don't particularly like to move a 4000# load manually in X on my gizmo.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

"File is too large" so I won't post some pix.....
I had them all selected, and ready to go.

Stoopid management around here as of late.

EDIT: no worries, I posted it on the "other" site.

I think the most fantastic bridge crane tractor drive could be developed with a wave-drive/harmonic drive with servo motor appropriated from a used robot arm. Zero lash, very rigid and easily positionable via slow speeds.

Downside of a jib crane is it requires some concrete work first especially if you are talking about long spans x large capacities.

Gorbel makes a 4k capacity 4-poster with large ~25' square travels. I am not a fan of their tractor drive however. It is VFD but lacks precise positioning...so much over or undershooting.