There are many types of car lifts on the market for various purposes. Lest you be confused among this variety, first, you need to understand where and how equipment is going to be used. This article is dealing with car lifts intended for garages of private houses and for multi-level parking garages.
Our car enthusiast customers often ask themselves what they should take into account when choosing a lift for their cars, because this purchase is serious and requires every detail to be thought through.- Installation of a lift is usually an excellent solution for those who need space saving or an extra parking space (for example, for the second car, motorcycles, water scooters, and other motor vehicles).
Let us begin with saying that either a four post liftor a scissor lift is typically installed in a home garage. Selection of the structure type will depend, first of all, on the foundation in the room.
Four Post Car Lift
In plain terms, this lift is a platform for a car with four posts to perform the lifting.
To list the main attributes of a car lift, the following should be distinguished:
- hydraulic cylinders (to ensure the platform lifting),
- a hydraulic power pack (to ensure the lift operability),
- a control system (wired panel / remote panel / control via a smartphone app).
It goes without saying that all components have to be made only of quality materials in order to ensure reliable use and a long operation life. As for HydroCube, we manufacture equipment using rolled metal stock made in Russia. Then, when the structure has already been fabricated, it undergoes machining – metal cleaning, pre-painting degreasing, and painting. This treatment allows equipment to serve for a long time without any exposure to corrosion. At the final stage, equipment undergoes dynamic tests: the car lift is loaded with a mass that exceeds the lift capacity by over 30%. Would you agree that after such a test you can be sure of the lift’s reliability?
The most interesting thing in the lift selection process, in our opinion, is elaboration of the lift design and features. The customer is able to give free rein to all ideas, and we’ll gladly turn them into reality.
So, for example, extra options may include the following elements:
- LED strip lights / signalling lights / illumination (one of functions is transmission of a signal on the improper position of the car),
- wheel chocks (for safety – the car will not roll anywhere is the driver forgets to set the parking brake),
- presence sensors (for safety – if there is a person or an object below, underneath the platform, the lift will not start to move until the space underneath it is empty),
- rubber coating of the area (for better adhesion with car tyres),
- a turntable (when you need consider some peculiarities of the room).
Scissor Car Lift
The scissor lift, similarly to the first case, is an area for a car, but, unlike the four post lift, it has a different mechanism of the area lifting – namely a scissor system. There are certain requirements for the foundation in the room for installation of this system – the surface has to be suitable for making a lift pit in it, since a pit is mandatory for the scissor design.
Main components are the same as those of the four post lift. As for extra options, there is again a lot of freedom for the customer’s imagination.– Modern technologies allow even the most unusual ideas to come into fruition. HydroCube is ready to find solutions even for the most challenging tasks.
Main Technical Characteristics
And certainly, a very important thing to consider when selecting any equipment is its technical characteristics. In this case, we are interested in characteristics of the room and those of the future lift.
For a car lift:
- capacity (up to 15 tonnes)*,
- platform dimensions (up to 50 m),
- maximum height (up to 15 m),
- time to lift the maximum load to the maximum height.
*values and dimensions in brackets are those used in HydroCube.
For a room:
- minimum height of the room,
- recommended dimensions of the surface area to be taken by the lift,
- requirements for the foundation to install the lift.
Thus, we described main aspects to pay attention to when selecting a car lift. Now, when you know them and, possibly, feel inspired by capabilities of a modern production facility, you can come up with a perfect lift for your car! Should you have any questions, – you can contact our specialists to get advice.