Lifting a 60ft tower with a hand crank.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2021
- This video is 2 years old and the tower has been up since then. imgur.com/a/pD7jOoL
Answering some questions/comments that keep coming up:
1 - Yes, we put the tower up with antennas after this.
2 - Everything on the other side of the antenna is downhill/wooded. No room to run a truck.
3 - If there's a next time we will try running the pull cable "through" the tree using a sling, so the tree only acts as fulcrumm. Then we don't have to worry about the stress on the tree itself, which was the biggest concern. We also have done some driveway work, so we might think a crane truck will be able to make the trip.
4- At no time were we "under" the suspended tower. That was rule #1. My friend with the board walked alongside the tower, sliding the 2x4 boards as we went.
Original description:
This is a US Towers aluminum tower, we are doing a test lift before attaching antennas and going official. The base is attached, it will be "hinged up". Official weight of the tower is 265lbs, but it works like a lever and multiplies the force needed. Can it be done by hand?
(SPOILER: Of course it can).
I made use of a "crane scale" which can measure up to 2000lbs. This was a game changer. I could track the pull force at every step of the way. Rather than an electric winch with unknown pull, I went with a 3/4 ton (1500lbs) rope puller. Everything else was rated at 1Ton (2000lbs) or higher.
Keep in mind the weight at the scale, is doubled at the tree's pulley. The rope puller only has to pull half the weight, but the tree has to handle all of it.
Tools Used:
Maasdam 3/4 Ton Rope Puller with 100' of 1/2" rope, amzn.to/3zZ0BaQ
Mophorn Hanging Scale 2000LBS, amzn.to/3DHGiB8
Mophorn Wire Rope Swaging Tool, amzn.to/38EsMjA
Crescent 28" Wire Rope and Cable Cutter, amzn.to/3DR99TC
Supplies Used:
Stainless Steel Cable 1/4 Inch, 200ft 5780lbs, amzn.to/3l0z2bf
Aluminum Loop Sleeves Cable Crimp, amzn.to/38HuG2N
Pulley/Snatch-block 2Ton, amzn.to/3tePFU6
D Ring Shackle, 2Ton capacity, amzn.to/3teXvx7
Steel Connecting Links 7100 lbs, amzn.to/3DZzj6W - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I tried to buy this very model tower from a local SK, many locals came to help get it down and we struggled for days to get the sections apart and eventually had to give up. I was surprised how each section sits down into the one below, leaving the joints facing up to absorb the 30 yrs of WV weather it had stood through. Sadly the project was abandoned and the tower was eventually cut up and sent to scrap. We were able to get it apart into two sections but that was separating the top 2 leaving about 40' in one piece, just no way to had transported it! I did buy the TH-7DX beam and HAM-IV rotor that was on the tower, maybe one day I will realize the ham dream and get that beam up! But for now the idea of a 60ft free standing is just gonna have to be just that, a dream!
As others mentioned a gin pole or an A frame with a pulley at the top would increase your mechanical advantage. You would be pulling nearly directly up when the tower was horizontal with about 200 lb force. Then when the middle of the tower was up about 16", the A frame would fall away but the force needed to continue hoisting would be reduced by then to about 200 lbs.and diminishing as the tower goes vertical.
Another technique is to use a compound pulley system. Instead of attaching the line to the middle of the tower and a pulley at the tree, anchor one end of the line at the tree. Feed the line to a pulley at about 1/4 of the tower height, then to another pulley at 3/4 the tower height, then back to a third pulley at the tree and finally to your rope come-along. It will take 3 pulleys and twice as much rope. The total force needed to start lifting the tower (and hence pulling on the tree) will be that 500 to 700 lbs, but the tension on the line at the come-along will be half that. You just have to pull twice as much rope. An advantage of this method is that pulling from two places on the tower is less likely to buckle the tower. I've heard of that happening, especially with aluminum towers, when others tried what you did.
ROPE ! I helpped a buddy lift his 75' tower. We chained his jeep to the bottom of a tree and used his jeep winch and a winch pole to raise it. Quick easy and alot safer.
Holy cow dude! You’re strong!!!
Rope come-a-long scary at best.
You need to be pulling from a higher point. Most of your pulling force is going thru the tower straight into the ground. You can put some sort of "A" frame back farther and lift over it to get that height. Nice tower.
If I had a taller (stronger) tree, I would have gone higher. My attach point on the tree is 16ft, it would be hard to build something taller.
@@armchairtechnician7725 You dont need to go higher on the tree. Just build an A-Frame Derrik out of pipe or 16 ft 2x6 or 4x4 . It would be like lifting from 16 ft higher up that tree...then the derrik falls away when the tower is about half way up. Look up "A-Frame Derrik" You can make one out of pipe or 2x6 wood.
Do you have experience in tilt over towers? Looking for some advice.
@@AvocaSingleTrack I found that any pull line greater than 45 degrees you're compressing the tower before lifting it. If you're up 16 ft, then connect 16-20 ft up the tower from the pivot point. I have 2 hinge over towers, home brew
73 W9DLP
Did you have a pulley at the Tree? You should have used a system of pulleys (Block & Tackle) to get a force multiplier. It would go slower but the Crank Ratchet would have less force on it.
You should look up a "gin pole". I routinely lifted and lowered the 30’ mast on my sailboat alone using a gin pole and a self tailing winch on the cabin top. Will greatly reduce the load on the lines. It keeps the sling angles half of what you are doing.
Yep, I used the same setup on a sailboat back in the day...Works like a charm...
Not a gin-pole but a falling derrick apparently.. Gin poles go vertical up the tower.
Callum, not a derrick. We sailboaters always called it a gin pole. It is a pole that mounts (temporarily) to the mast and holds the lifting line well above the mast to allow for better sling angles and far more mechanical advantage especially at the parallel to the ground to about 45° angle portion of the lift. After that, the top of the mast and winch distance from the base gave a good pull. Once erect and the stays are attached the gin pole is removed and stowed.
Back in the 80s I use to walk & stand up by myself a 40ft galvanized hinged steel free standing Rohn Tower with a Super Penetrator 500 on top.❤
A chain or etc. between two of those trees approx. 90 degrees from the pulley, with the come-along in the middle of the chain, would greatly increase the lifting advantage over the
single-point pull. And the higher up the tree the better. Maybe standing in the back of a pickup truck to get the extra height.
2000 pound electric winch should do just fine.
Put some tension on a come along between that tree and a tree behind it
The longer it's in suspension the more dangerous it becomes to the poor guy pushing it with boards and this guy cranks slow slow and barks orders vs concentrating on cranking
If the tree gives out your friend will be smashed. Stand clear at all times.
Wonder how much my 30 foot american with an I max would weigh?
He should have make the tower in sections I have installd up to 60 meters tower with o proble
Buy a 12000lbs off road recovery winch and solid cables and stop playing 😊
the strain on the tree is TWICE THE INDICATED STRAIN. a straight pull would be better passing the line thru the tree instead of using it as an anchor, Woody
Yep. I should have mentioned this is a 2:1 pulley system so we only have half the weight at the winch.
Also, I'll try this approach next time - passing the rope through the tree and down the hill. One advantage of having it within site of the tower is that you can synchronize pushing the board with the person pulling. But if we can make a sleeve in the crook of the tree for the cable, we won't have to worry as much about the tree's load rating.
Oh, and at 8:10 or so he's talking about a "wedge", he means a falling derrick.
Winch is a toy for that tower
Never seen a hand winch / come along that used rope. What brand / model?
Harbor freight! That thing is not rated for that weight!
@texas2wheeler446. Just checked back and saw this. Despite the comment below, not harbor freight. Tools used are in the video description, this is a Maasdam 3/4 Ton Rope Puller with 100' of 1/2" rope. amzn.to/3zZ0BaQ It's rated for 3/4 ton, and I had a scale rated for 1 ton. Every piece was rated at least 1 ton, and no part of the system would have experienced forces anywhere approaching that. At peak, we had 400lbs on the rope, which would translate to 800lbs on the tree.
Big nope on the rope
On a tilt tower, the weight of the tower is the key factor? Far as the force on the base?
It's all about length and leverage. The higher your liftpoint on the tower, the less force you need. At the start of the video, we lift at the top of the tower, taking advantage of the 65 foot "lever", then we lift about midway and that doubles the amount of force needed. The angle of the rope also was an impediment to us. When we redo it, we're going to pass through the tree instead of pulling against the tree.
@@armchairtechnician7725 I agree, I just wonder how much of a concrete base I need for my tilt over/ crank up tower. I'm thinking a lower pull point would put more stress on the base as well.
@@theboogeyman826 If you can find out the make/model of your tower, you should be able to find the engineering diagram for it. They specify the base dimensions in concrete. There's two numbers - lift height and lift point/pull point. Where you connect on the tower is the list or pull point. That should be a decent height from the bottom, say halfway up. The rule of thumb is the higher the better - though on mine I'd want to avoid using the topmost section (it is much thinner and probably would not support the weight of the tower).
The lift height is how high your cable/rope/pulley is in relation to the tower. In my case, lift height at the three was 16ft. But my connection at the tower (lift point) was around 30. The lift height is important for how much force your winch needs. The lift point determines how much force is applied at the tower. In general, the middle should be fine. The extreme top might be thinner metal, and if you put it at the bottom, you might be producing thousands of pounds of force.
To sum all this up - I'm not an engineer, but for most towers, as long as your lift/pull point is not within the bottom or top 15% of the tower length, a tilt over tower should be able to handle the stress, no matter where your lift point is. To me, the bigger concern is the rating of any pulleys, the cable, or your winch.
@@armchairtechnician7725 I sure appreciate the feed back. Mine is actually is homemade design. Two section crank up. The top, or inside section is rohn 25g. The guy built a bottom or outside section for it to crank up and down in. Hinge base is homemade as well. Cranks down to 32 feet minimum. Max around 55 feet or so. I didn't get to ask how much concrete he used before he passed away.
Once you get it a third of the way up it won't be as much
How much force would be on the base and raising cable, I keep hearing different things.
You just need a team of mules to pull that up it would have been over in about 30 seconds.
did you ever get the tower up
Yep - we put it up a month later. imgur.com/a/pD7jOoL
failed ?
Nope - goal during this video was to get it mostly up (past the halfway point), then lower it again. There was still some antennas to put on and cables to run. Ran the tower up for good a month later.
imgur.com/a/pD7jOoL
It obviously can handle 500lbs so why I he just slowly counting n cranking calling out 200 to 400 lbs and going so slow like if it cannot handle the weight when it can
Until we cranked it up the first time, we didn't know how much weight would be at the crank. Anything we observed at the crank is doubled at the tree (2:1 pulley setup). We learned that when we get close to 500lbs at the crank, or 1000lbs at the tree, we started to pull the tree down instead of the tower up.
So for this setup, we needed my friend to push up during the early stages to take load off the tree. He has a lot more leverage at the end of the tower than the cable does halfway up.
Also, at no point was he under the tower, but rather off to the side. Slide the board as the crank lifts the tower.
The closer the tower gets to 90, the less force on the crank and tree.
wow i cant belive noone said a word on what they did wrong in the biggest way.... omg .... IT WASNT WINTER .. no ice storm or snow and below zero temps... dang it guys u know the rules .. hahhahahha