Model: Light Cargo-only Lift with Self-Tipping Wheelbarrow Car
Track: 40' at 40°
Area: Sparrow Lake, Gravenhurst
Year: 2008
These cottagers had a sandy beach that was always cluttered with weeds and debris which the prevailing wind regularly deposited. Keeping it clean was a full-time weekend chore; the wet weeds and debris had to be hauled up stairs, then placed in a lawn trailer, and then moved to a compost heap.
They needed a way to clear the beach without using up their whole weekend.
We devised a lift with a wheelbarrow-type bucket that tips automatically as the car travels the last 2' at the top. When the car at the bottom the bucket is in the down position for filling. The first push of the UP button sends the car up the track and it stops 5' short of the top. Holding the UP button in for a few seconds then sends the car the rest of the way to the top and tips the contents into their waiting garden trailer. From there it's a short run to the compost heap in the woods. A single press of the DOWN button sends it back down all the way to the bottom for another load.
When we built the lift the owners opted not to have button boxes for greater safety, they had 2 young curious children, so we ran it off a remote controller. We later retrofitted a single hard-wired button box at the top station. The lift is turned on using a code entered with the UP, DOWN, and STOP buttons. It can be turned off manually or it will turn itself off automatically after 15 minutes of inactivity.
The tipped basket. There's room under it for their tipping garden trailer to receive the load.
This is the mid-position where the basket stops on the way up. It's a good place to leave the filled basket for the weekend so the load can drain off the excess water before the final trip to the compost heap. The yellow frame of the hoist winch can be seen just below the track.
The car in the lower position ready to accept a load of Muskoka’s finest beach debris.
Two wheels on the car ride up the the two “ramps” near the top end to tip the bucket.
This lift is powered by a low-cost 110-volt winch that is controlled by a PLC specially programmed for this lift and lift plugs into a standard 110-volt GFI protected outlet.
It took about six weeks from the initial site visit to the first load.
The best part: their children are enjoying the beach and their parents are enjoying spending their weekends not hauling dead weeds up the hill.
The video shows the car going most of the way up the hill, stopping, going up the rest of the way and tipping, and then going back to the bottom.
Please turn your sound off first, unless you like horrible screechy wind noise.
For the observant reader, after we took this video we moved the intermediate stop down the hill so that the drainage holes in the bucket were far away from the winch.