Pentalift News Blog
Product Spotlight – Hydraulic UpEnder
June 16, 2015, 3:12 pm - 
Pentalift UpEnders are engineered and designed for applications where a freestanding piece of equipment is required to safely reorient and provide 90° tilt for heavy and awkward loads. Pentalift offers several pre-engineered UpEnder models, while also providing solutions for larger and very heavy custom UpEnding applications. Here is a link to a case study where Pentalift built a custom 60,000lb UpEnder to suit a customer’s application. Common options include: v-groove on one plane, used to help stabilize cylindrical loads; limit switches to restrict tilt to less than 90°; tie down locations installed on deck, to facilitate customer securing of loads; etc. Contact your Pentalift Sales Representative for more information.
Lift Tables For Applications With No Electricity
June 11, 2015, 4:38 pm -
There are often lift table applications where it is impossible to permit electricity. Pentalift offers several options to overcome this situation. The first would be to look at the Pentaloader, an exclusive self-leveling Pentalift product that uses a spring cam arrangement to automatically present the load at an ergonomic height without using any power source. This table does not require any power unit of any kind, and is the only really durable, industrial strength self-leveler available in the marketplace. The Pentaloader is available in (4) different configurations, which can handle loads anywhere from 600lbs to 4500lbs. The spring tension can be adjusted without the use of any tools, by simply adding or removing spring locking pins from the system.
Another option would be to look at using a pneumatic table. There are two ways that Pentalift offers air tables. The first would be the Pro Air Series, which uses air bag technology to actuate the table. The other possibility would be to use a normal lift table with hydraulic cylinders, but then drive the cylinders using an air motor. Air bag technology is quieter and less expensive, but has limited size and vertical travel capabilities. Air motors provide much more flexibility when it comes to size and vertical travel, but are louder and are more expensive. Contact your Pentalift Sales Representative for more information.
Developing Project Buy-In
June 11, 2015, 9:00 am - You can’t force workers to go along with major changes in a process. From ignoring training to wasting time complaining to trying to find shortcuts, employees who do not agree with the new process will effectively prevent it from working. Even worse, since most changes have little hiccups, the process will need a few employees […]
Why don’t all loading dock areas have a vehicle restraint?
June 8, 2015, 10:15 am - Vehicle restraints were first introduced to increase safety at the loading dock approximately 35 years ago. The most common safety device has always been the wheel chock for the truck. Wheel chocks are like a wedge, and once the truck is backed into position, the chocks are manually positioned in front of the back wheels to the stop the truck from rolling forward while it is being loaded. Often these chocks go missing, or can can slip on the snow and ice during winter weather. Since they are usually attached to the foundation or the building at the overhead door, vehicle restraints combined with communication light packages, are much more reliable and effective than wheel chocks. When the truck is backed into position the dock attendant activates the vehicle restraint. The vehicle restraint hooks onto the truck’s rear impact guard and locks the truck into position.
Vehicle restraints are not yet mandatory, but more and more companies are specifying vehicle restraints for all of their new buildings as well as adding them to their existing facilities. The loading dock area is often referred to as the most dangerous part of any manufacturing or distribution center, so to increase safety more and more vehicle restraints are being installed. Contact your Pentalift Sales Representative for more information.
Lift Tables and Drift
June 5, 2015, 5:10 pm - Many will have experienced the situation where a lift table is set to a specific height, they have gone home for the evening, and when returning in the morning they find that the lift table has dropped a significant height from the position they had left it in the night before. So what can be done if the application requires that the table does not drift? Adding a manual Water, Oil, Gas valve, or WOG valve will provide the ability to manually shut off the flow of fluids which will help to minimize the drift. With that said, there is no hydraulic method alone that will completely eliminate drift. The simplest and only method to truly ensure zero drift is to have mechanical stops that can be dropped in and prevent the table from lowering. Contact your Pentalift Sales Representative for more information.
