DIY SMITH

09/16/2024

Check out DIY Smith’s video.

03/15/2024

The lift is done! The last video. It shows the whole build. Well at least what I took pictures and video of.

After watching many DIY build videos, I decided to create my own system. For safety purposes, I intentionally used overrated parts and was pleased with the o...

03/13/2024

Did some upgrades to the cart. Lithium batteries and an 5KW DC to AC motor kit. Haha

01/09/2024

The lift is done. Ill update the finishing touches in a later post.

01/08/2024

12/18/2023

Here is a video of me testing out the water reserve tank alarm. It works good. It lets you know when you lost water from the water company and are on the reserve tank.

Pay no attention to the crappy install of my own tank. LOL, I intend on reducing the piping when I install a Whole house RO system soon. 😉

12/18/2023

Last weekend I got to help another Neighbor.

So, in my neighborhood, we have a community well (Owned by a water company) that feeds about 200+ Houses. When folks use more water in the summer, we constantly drain the water tanks. This happened about 20 times last year and even more the year before. Each year, they add a few more houses but still do not increase the capacity of our water system. It becomes annoying when you wake up to get ready for work and turn on the water, and there is no pressure. On average, the water loss lasts about 4 hours.

So, a friend and I devised a solution to the problem that we could implement. One that did not require our water companies no exsistant help. The idea was to put a well-house bladder tank (120 gal) in line with your house on your property. When we lose water, you still have a reserve in the tank that lasts quite a while as pressure slowly bleeds off from use. I also repurposed the well-pump switch to alert you when you have lost water pressure from our water company and are now limited to what is in your tank. This allows you to conserve the water you have. The alarm will turn on at 20 psi when it is decreasing and automatically turn off at 40 psi when it is increasing, letting you know you have water in your house again.

I have now assisted around 8 of my neighbors with these installs. Here are a few pics of them

11/28/2023

Using the lift. Before it's 100% done. Workes good. Just needs the finishing touches.

11/28/2023

Switch Test #2

11/28/2023

Switch Test #1

11/28/2023

Update on the Lift: I installed a safety switch that stops the winch motor in the upward direction once it is flush with the ceiling. I tested it, and it works well when the lift has weight on it, overshoots a bit with no weight on it. That might change when I get the bottom ceiling cover plywood on.

I had to stop at that point to finish the storage area for the Halloween storage. So I could get it put up and get Christmas decorations down. The area where I wanted to put the storage only had 2x6 ceiling joists, so I sistered them up with some 2x8s. I screwed them together every few feet with a strong tie to the header. Then added 3/4" plywood screwed down with deck screws.

Now, it was time to use the lift and stow some Halloween.

I am not 100% happy with the motor and gearbox I chose for this project, and I am highly considering an IronHorse worm gearbox. The great thing about a worm gearbox is that if the motor fails, the lift will not free-fall. It would just stop. There is some safety built in.

I will post some videos in the post after this one.

11/13/2023