Model B-19-2.5-R has left the building

[frobzwiththingz]

The first aerial rig i built for someone *else* has just left my hands and entered the customers hands. It was taken home this afternoon after an orientation session with the new owners.

It has 19 foot high mount points, and breaks down into pieces 6 feet 8.5 inches long. Total weight about 230lbs. Can be set up to a lower height of 14.5. Goes up and down quickly and easily with 3 people.



It's the 4-legged structure on the right here, being watched over by the larger steel rig in my backyard.



Closeup of top bar here:



Cheesy animated GIF of dissasembly:





Now to start hunting down prospects for more orders...

Comments

[tcb.livejournal.com]

*damn* nice work, Phil.. Congrats!

[mangosteen]

Mazel Tov!

[goat.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

[missionista.livejournal.com]

The grand opening of Phil's Rig Emporium and Bait Shop, at last! This is so cool, congratulations!

[happyinmotion.livejournal.com]

What's the buckling load on those long, skinny legs? Or are there braces that I can't see?

[klingonlandlady.livejournal.com]

Yay!!

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

How utterly wonderful! Go you!!!

[rmd.livejournal.com]

sweet!

[ceo]

Nice work!

[sarahshevett.livejournal.com]

Is that aluminum? Nice job.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

yay! :)

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

That looks like that's pretty darned easy to take apart. I'm guessing it's just as easy to put up, too. That's impressive!

[blackanvil.livejournal.com]

Neat!

[gravitrue.livejournal.com]

rock on.

[sicklemoon.livejournal.com]

Price as pictured available on request?



The bugs did buy their own globe this summer, with the profits from their Grand Old Day Koolaid stand. But I'm figuring it would take them a few years' worth of Grand Old Days revenue to bring home one of these...

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

Nope, no braces. No ground anchors, either; it's completely freestanding. The columns do indeed look rather skinny, but are surprisingly strong. the tubing is 6061 T651, 2.5 inch x .25 inch wall.
A 24 foot long column of this stuff has a critical buckling load of about 330 lbs. [this is gotten by assuming a worst-case configuration in the rig of the top bar rotating about the axis of applied load, and considering any individual leg to be in a one-end-pinned, one-end-guided configuration. k = 2.0. I = 1.132 in^4, E = 10000 ksi, L = 288 in. [a both-sides-pinned configuration would give you about 1300lbs! really!]). Not that this number is really useable; this column is not ideally axially loaded, plus there are the sleeves and their slop-around-the-sleeve-fit to reckon with that causes an initial out-of-true starting point. In any case we know the column isn't going to remain perfectly straight. It will "buckle" This is OK. Buckling != failure.

What i actually did was to take an assembled column and axially load it at various tensions, up to an equivalent of hanging a 2000 lb weight on the rig, and measure column deflection and end-slope conditions. from here, compute the induced bending moment at the weakest point (the center sleeve joint). Compare to the bending moment required to cause the sleeve to yield via bending stress. It's plenty strong enough! [x-sectional area of column is 1.767in^2. 6061 T651 is 37ksi stuff; at the loads the rig will see, we can completely ignore the compressive stress the tube (but not the sleeve) sees.]

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Yow! Just looked at this. Nice!