I am designing a boat lift and I am would like a motor that ramps up the the full speed and the does the same when it stops. I wanted to know if this feature is available in off the shelf motors or will I have to have a control module, and if so what is it called and who has them? I am not a engineer obviously, but I love to design things. I have built one lift and I a reasonable happy with its performance. I want to totally rearrange everything for a less labor intensive process of building. I am using a off the shelf winch and pulley arrangement now and its really noisy. I want a cost effective quite way to lower a 1400 lb load to the water. I am looking at speed reducers with a 5:1 ration coupled with a further reduction of 4:1 using chain and sprockets to achieve a fall of 8 ft in 10 seconds. I also did this to try and reduce the cost of the speed reducer itself. From what I have read there are shock loads , initial motor start up consideration. I would like to know what is the minimum motor and gear needed with a safety margin but I haven't worked out the finished form of the machine, yet so I will wait on that one for now. I am also concerned about free fall if the motor fails as the boat will be lowered while occupied . I am considering some kind of viscous rotary dampener if I can find a cost effective one. I have heard that some of the speed reducers are not easy, or nearly impossible to turn from the output side is this true? If so I can eliminate one expensive part. I am attaching a file with the basic Idea for the latest design of the cradle platform . The original one i built was a kayak lift Using bent pipe verses the plasma cut sheet aluminum as seen in my drawing. I haven't put all the parts in it yet so its very crude. I want to improve it and increase the width to accommodate a small john boat 14 ft in length and 4 foot wide. Sorry about rambling on but I need some help from you folk. My main concern is simplicity and that perhaps I am overdoing it by staging the reduction with the sprockets when addition cost of manufacturing may be more than a more expensive reduction system. Secondly keeping the motor withing reasonable HP rating for this application. I want to keep the manufacturing part cost down just like everyone else.
Thanks Bob
Thanks Bob