Automatic Gantry Crane
Built by Brian Leach in October 2012
The only manual difficultly is the orientation of the tracks which is not obvious. They face inwards. Another thing the manual could have picked up on is how to make sure the tracks are perfectly parallel, which they need to be since there is no side play in the 2” wheels. The trick is to loosen the screws on the whole track section and place the trolley on the track and then tighten the nearby screws. Then move the trolley along and repeat. There is a very nice auto-reversing mechanism which means the trolley goes back and forth without any intervention. Less pleasant is the pulley block height is related to how far along the trolley is and cannot be controlled independently.