New LIFTTECH direct drive AC winch motor can't lift 2800 pound boat on an old ShoreStation

[swbca]

Just updated an older model ShoreStation with new cables, bunks, Canopy. I was able to wind the boat up by hand with the big ShoreStation wheel.

 

Then I Installed the LiftTech AC motor.

Without the boat it would wind from bottom to top very fast. Didn't time it but it was maybe 30 seconds.

With the boat it would slow then stall out when the boat was about 70% out of the water

Using a 3-12 75' Extension Cord.  Instructions say up to 150' on a 3-12 cord.

Voltage at the winch is 115 with the winch OFF.

Drops to 112 when it can no longer lift the boat.

Any Ideas . . . can one of the concealed pully wheels be stuck ?

I don't think there are any compatibility problems. They sell the same model for every old ShoreStation.

I don't think 112 volts under load should stop an AC motor.

 

I guess I'll try the emergency electric drill adaptor. If the Lift is binding up somewhere, the drill probably won't work either. I have a 1400 inch-pound Milwaukee. Have to be careful, it can literally break your wrist if attached something that won't turn. Happened to me 5 months ago attached to an Ice Auger.

[thager]

Make sure all your pulleys are turning freely and hit them with a grease. NoSeize works very well for me and makes a huge difference on my 12V Lift Boss.

[swbca]

@thager Is your lift a vertical lift with the pulleys under water ? I also think they are concealed. Bottom Line, I think this lift would have to be on-land to service the pulleys ? Is that correct ?

[Golfguy]

It might be a lack of AMPS. That is why so many hydraulic lift s must use a 12V battery.

[jhughes]

I use an A/C friction wheel setup with my vertical lift Shorestation. Even with an array of extension cords going at least 100 feet that thing absolutely rips. AWG varies but is mostly 14. So, maybe it's not the current/amperage.

[thager]

@swbca No mine is a cantilever but pulleys are underwater. When the Anti-sieze washes out the lift motor has a heck of a hard time raising my 196. Some of the pulleys will stop turning just dragging the cable over the pulleys. I grease the cables also.

[foxriverat]

Did you change to the lower gearing in the motor? I had one years back and there was a mode to change the gearing which the guy at lift tech told me I would have to do for shorestation brands. It was a while ago. I forgot how to do it.

[swbca]

UPDATE, I attached an electric drill to the winch motor with the fitting provided for power failures. The electric drill had no problem winding the boat up.

 

The motor is rated for a 7000 pound boat. If my electric drill can lift the 2800 pound boat attached to the winch motor, I doubt if a sticky pulley in the lift could be the problem.

 

Fortunately the manufacturer is 10 minutes from our home. He said to bring it in and they can test while I stand there.

[Mastercrafter]

Not that it should matter much, but what Shorestation do you have? 36108? 40108? The 40XXX has an easier-to-lift gear reduction, otherwise they're the same lift.

 

I had a 36108 that must have had bad pulleys. The 3600lb lift was almost impossible to lift up an old 80's Prostar by hand (2400 lbs) -- It was one spoke at a time on the wheel, not fun. Got the 40120 with the new Prostar, 1000lbs heavier, and can lift with one arm.

 

Regardless.. sounds like you may have an AC motor problem since the drill does it just fine.

[ReallyGottaSki]

Since you remarked it wound up top to bottom in 30 seconds without the boat, suggests not enough reduction in the system

[swbca]

UPDATE 2

I brought the motor to the manufacturer this morning. It was a coincidence that it was only a few miles from our lake place. It test OK on their test lift but it only had 2000 pound of weight on the lift. It worked on our lift up to and estimated 2000 pounds as well and that's when it stopped.

 

GEAR RATIO

The units all come with a 50-1 gearbox. I accepted their offer to replace the gearbox with an 80-1 gearbox.

 

With the 80-1 gears, the boat now lifts to the top. I still need to check all the pulley wheels. It should have worked with the 50-1 gearing.

 

Thanks for your feedback

[Skoot1123]

It would be an interesting comparison if you had straight power to the motor vs using an extension cord. Perhaps a slight bind in the system would cause it to require considerable more amperage and it just didn’t have the grunt? I know for our system I had to put a greater reduction pulley in it due to peripheral loading on the other components in the system.

 

Glad you got something that works.

[bananaron]

@swbca My neighbor started that company and just sold out last yr.I have had one for many yrs and it has always worked lifting my many boats!! If you have a problem contact me I will contact dave and talk with him.....

[swbca]

@Mastercrafter You asked the model number of my old ShoreStation

@bananaron I guess we are neighbors. Our place is on BayLake.

 

Its a 36108. With my 2800lb ProStar I can wind it up with one hand by grabbing a spoke when its horizontal on the left and pulling it up and around 1/2 turn to the right. It isn't too hard per stroke, but I needed a beer about half way up. Judging by what you said, maybe I don't have any stuck pulleys.

 

I still don't know why the LIFTTECH motor couldn't handle it until its gear ratio was changed from 1/50 to 1/80. Apparently the 7000 pound rating is all about the gear ratio of the lift. Theoretically, it could lift anything with an unlimited gear ratio built into lift's winch.

 

That's why I can wind up my ProStar with an electric drill attached to the LIFTTECH. My drill spinning at full speed takes 10 times longer to raise the boat 1 foot than the LEFTTECH motor, so it only needs 10% of the torque to lift the boat.

[Zman]

@swbca

Glad it is at least working now. But, definitely should have worked just fine with the standard gearbox. Mine has lifted a 3300 lb Txi just fine for many years.

I suspect there is a component in your system that allows it to work OK when lifting slowly (less power being transferred) - such as using the manual wheel, the drill, or the 1/80 gearbox. Besides the pulleys as others have noted - be sure you are using the same cable and cable diameter as originial, and the cables are all installed correctly with the proper amount of slack and tension per the manufacturers assembly instructions. My Craftlander had instructions for adjusting the tension on the cables. If too snug, trying to move a little faster might be creating extra drag in the system. Have you checked the Shorelander assembly instructions?

[hanginon]

I've had a early commander on a 36108 cantilever for >15 years. A couple of non-obvious things to check:

1. The 3 pulleys that the cable runs through have a steel sleeve bearing that, over time, wears the brass pulley wheel center hole out to a much larger diameter, creating higher friction. When I replaced mine, the dealer suggested that the pulleys should be disassembled and re-greased at least annually.

2. I'm not sure that this applies the recent versions, but a couple of years back, my wife was lowering the lift, and kept pushing the "down" button until the winch drum completely unwound and started winding up the other way. So the down and up directions effectively became swapped. No big deal, except that the (clever) design of the motor controller/phase converter is asymmetric in that that the unwind direction motor is faster and produces less torque than the up direction. So in the swapped condition, when the boat started lifting out of the water, the motor would stall, just like yours. This was pretty perplexing for a while, but a call to the factory support guy straightened me out - it was he first thing he mentioned. Yes, I felt a little dumb.

[Clydesdale]

I’m an EE-electrical to the unit sounds fine. 112v under load should do the job. Don’t worry about amps. The lift will draw what it needs. If current draw was too high you’d see a more significant voltage drop. If it’s electrical it’s internal to the lift.

[Zman]

@hanginon may be on to something. Since all new cables were installed, having the main lift cable winding up in the proper direction as noted by @hanginon is definitely something to check. That might be it. Easy mistake to make.

[swbca]

@Zman @hanginon The cable is winding the correct direction. Yesterday I removed the curved cover over the winch's drum to see how everything looked. The cable is wound correctly. If the winding was reversed, the position of the cable would be about 4" further back and it would be grinding against a cross bracket in the drum housing. I would think that would make a noise that would be hard to miss

 

@foxriverat Regarding the GEAR RATIO CHANGE, changing the gear-box on the motor from 1/50 to 1/80 gave the motor 60% more weight capacity and 60% slower. This enabled the winch to lift the boat, but I still suspect something is binding somewhere.

 

SHORESTATION MAINTENANCE

When I did a YOUTUBE search for "ShoreStation Maintenance" I only got a YOUTUBE video for maintaining a different brand. It showed several ZIRK fittings including the pulleys and winch drum components.

 

Then I found actual ShoreStation operators manual and it had nothing on lubrication. It did mention a "leveling Cable" and advised making sure the lift is supported level on the ground without any twisting of the frame . . . . when I let the boat down, there is squeeking type noise coming from the circular guides that travel down the round vertical legs of the lift. There is side pressure on some of these guides. I think they should be floating loose on the vertical legs. It doesn't make the noise going up because these parts are wet. The lift sure looks level. when the lifting frame is at water level, its a perfect match all the way around.

 

The ShoreStation winch has a Chain (like a bike chain) that links the wheel shaft to the cable drum. The manual had no comments about lubricating this chain and the bearings in the winch mechanism are mostly concealed so they can't be lubricated.

 

Maybe no one expected these lifts would be in service 25 years and beyond.

[SkiBadger]

@swbca - You are correct, the cradle should not be binding with any of the legs.

 

Have you inspected the pulleys in the horizontal winch tube? I have 2 older shorestations and have replaced the horizontal tubes on both hoists, for different reasons. The non-metallic pulleys in the tube on one hoist simply crumbled.

[foxriverat]

@swbca my shorestation was exact same as yours 36108 with a 96 supra ts6m around 2800 lbs also. I rebuilt winch tube and pulleys and all other cables were good and it was always a bitch to crank up. I actually ground down the inside of the circular guides that were rubbing on the legs. The guy I talked to at lifttech knew the motor and the lift inside out. He said the 36108 was always a harder lift to crank up.

 

[hanginon]

I timed my lift operation - for my 196 (2700 lbs), it took 60 seconds to raise the hull from floating to ~1' above the water, and 50 sec to lower it back to floating. As @ReallyGottaSki suggested, your 30 sec timing seems fast.

[swbca]

@hanginon I am only 12 miles from the factory, so they had me bring the motor in and they swapped the gearbox while I waited. (50/1 to 80/1) Now its 60% slower and has 60% more weight capacity. After the gear change the winch works fine. The slower speed is better in my opinion. I don't want wind my rear-view mirror right through the canopy by taking my eye off of the lifting progress for 10 seconds. (actually I wish I had bought the "auto-stop" model which allows you to program the end-points into the motor)

 

The standard gear ratio seems to be intended for the ShoreStation 40108 which is the same lift with a lower gear ratio winch in order to increase the weight rating on the lift. Others have said their LIFTTECH winch wouldn't work until the motor's gears were changed.