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[kundelcranes]

Internal Electric Bar (how to quote a crane system)

The internal electric bar rides inside the runway and bridge to provide festoon-free (cordless) power to the hoist. The internal electric bar is one of the greatest crane options we offer, so when quoting a crane system always remember to ask "internal electric... yes or no."

As a side note: You can upgrade a festooned system to an internally electrified system anytime you want. So if you want to try festooning and come to find out you hate the "clutter," simply upgrade.

As another side note: The internal electric bar carries power from an external power source, down the runway, across the bridge, and into the hoist. ONLY ONE RUNWAY NEEDS TO HAVE THE INTERNAL ELECTRIC BAR, NOT BOTH. Okay, caps is off so I'm done yelling.

There are two parts to internal electric. The first part is the internal electric bar, and it looks like this:

This is the bar that rides inside ONE runway and down every bridge that you want electrified)

The second part to internal electric is the collector. The collector attaches to the trolley and looks like this:

This is the collector. The yellow lines up with the yellow on the bus bar.

The entire internal electric system together looks like this:

This is the collector, attached the the trolley, and running (like track lighting) inside the bus bar.

The internal electric system works a lot like track lighting systems. It is one of our crane option top sellers - and a word of warning **You will never go back to a festooned system once you use internal electric**

[kundelcranes]

Center Line of Supports (how to quote a crane system)

The center line of supports simply means the distance between each support. This distance can either be the same for ALL system supports, or if something is preventing a support to go in a specific place you can do... what we call "stagger" the supports. In most cases when we stagger support locations it is because a customer has a very specific floor plan, and need the posts to be positioned in the right place.

The solid posts represent a system having same center line of supports. The ghosted posts represent how you can offset center-lines (say if something were in the way). Note the back left post has been rotated 90*. This is yet another option that you have - however it can only be done with the last post(s) on the runway.

Was this helpful, let me know with a comment.

p.s. thanks for everything steve.

[kundelcranes]

Runway Lenght and Cantilevers (how to quote a crane system)

Finally, some meat and potatoes.

The length of the runway is pretty much the length of the crane system. Longer length runways require more posts, shorter length runways require less posts. We'll get more into this when we talk about center line of supports.

(Heavier crane capacities also require more posts, but this is because as you increase capacity, you have to compensate for the extra weight by moving posts closer together - there is a difference between heavier capacities needing more posts and longer runways needing more posts... be careful)

Sometimes customers want to cantilever the runway. This simply means that they want to have an unsupported extension of the runway off the end of the crane system. See picture below.

This is a runway cantilever and a bad sketch

Sometimes we have customers wanting to cantilever the bridge. Just a word of warning: If the system has posts on the side you want to cantilever on... IT CAN'T BE DONE.

The bridge will run into the posts!

When the cantilever is on the same side as ceiling hangers, then a bridge cantilever WORKS!

[kundelcranes]

Trolley Height Required (how to quote a crane system)

First let's give you a mental image of a trolley so you know what were talking about.

This is a trolley, the four wheels ride inside a bridge, the bottom sticks out under the bridge. The metal pin at the center bottom is the TROLLEY EYE. The trolley eye is where you hook the trolley to your hoist

As a manufacturer, we need to know what height the trolley eye should be. Knowing this height allows us to back engineer the system and determine what height posts are needed to achieve the needed trolley eye.

Another dimension, in lieu of the trolley eye height, that can be specified is the under girder height. This simply means from the height from bottom of the bridge to the ground. Again, with this height, we can back engineer to determine the height of the posts needed.

And this is why the trolley eye height (or the under girder height) is important.

P.S. The reason we use the trolley eye height or the under girder height and NOT the hoist hook height is because there are a vast amount of different size hoists. In other words we don't know the height of the hoist a customer is going to buy for their system... so we can't back engineer to determine the height of the posts.

If you want me to clarify more, just leave a comment. Thanks.

[kundelcranes]

Number of Bridges (how to quote a crane system)

Crane systems can have more than one bridge. They can have as many bridges they want (for the sake of argument). It is up to the customer as to how many bridges the system will have. The reason customers like to have multiple bridges is because more than one worker can be doing something on the crane system at a time. On the other hand, if you have only one bride, only one person can be lifting/moving something.

The manufacture needs to know how many bridges because they need to have the right size runways to accommodate for the extra weight.

Here I explain Multiple Bridges in more detail (click here)

Here is a system that has more than 1 bridge. See how many people can work at once!

[kundelcranes]

Bridge Lenght of Max O.D. (how to quote a crane system)

There are 3 ways to determine a bridge length.

1) You can specify the bridge length required, and the manufacturer will give you the max capacity for that bridge length.

2) You can specify the capacity you need to lift, and the manufacturer will give you the max bridge length that can be achieved with that capacity.

3) A combination of both - maybe you don't want the longest bridge because it can fit inside your work area - maybe you don't need the highest rated capacities because your products are fairly lightweight.

Regardless of what route you take one thing stays certain - you will be asked "what length bridge do you want."

As a side note:

Sometimes customers need a bridge to span longer than we normally supply (normally meaning a system with two runways and a bridge) - In this case a third runway can be added in between the other two runways. The only requirement for this third runway is that it MUST (i repeat MUST) be ceiling hung. I tried my best to sketch it out below:

An advanced option where we add a third ceiling hung runway to allow for greater bridge spans.