If you own a cabin in the mountains of British Columbia what do you do during the warmer summer months? Well, we’d probably mix of a cocktail and string up a hammock, but [Darrin] is quite a bit more motivated. He planned for the snowy season by building his own ski lift. He shared the details in a forum post, but you’re going to have to register and wait for approval before you can view that thread. Perhaps you’ll want to look at the video after the break before making that kind of commitment. Normally we would just pass over projects that require a login to view, but this one deserves the attention.
The setup is essentially a very steep tow rope. 1600 feet of 1/8″ aircraft cable covers an 800 foot span of his property. Apparently he’s got a total of 1000 feet of vertical drop but the lift doesn’t cover the whole area quite yet. That 6.5 horsepower Honda engine drives the cable loop, with the pulley system seen above used as an RPM reducer. Each skier can hook onto the cable used the nylon rope with a ski-pole spacer and a hook. The RC vehicle remote control works as a dead man’s switch, starting the lift slowly when the throttle is depressed and stopping it when released.
Normally we like to link to similar projects, but so far this is the only ski lift we’ve covered. You’ll have to settle for this ski-pole mounted POV display.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yyXRBPijG0&w=470]
The pulleys don’t appear to be actually reducing the speed. I think they’re there to provide greater grip on the cable.
yea, looks like pulleys are there for cable grip. If you watch the video, it shows a chain drive to reduce the RPM from the engine to final output.
Very cool. :)
Neat, but underpowered. A friend of mine has a lift at his house for his kids, but it’s powered by a 6 cylinder fiero engine. It can haul 8 people at once over a ~1500′ span.
Is this one underpowered, or is your friend’s overpowered?
Overpowered? How can towing uphill at 35mph be overpowered?
(he has a governor on it, current top speed <5mph)
The ski slope near Walhalla, ND used to use the engine of a WW II German Armored Personal Carrier to run its towline. The APC was still attached, probably helping to anchor the towline (and supply gear reduction?). An acquaintance of mine later purchased the APC to include with his tank collection.
this is a single person towrope…not a multiperson ski lift. 6.5hp is plenty to pull a single person up a mountain and is a lot easier to maintain, store and fuel.
also, you’re full of shit unless you post pictures or a link.
Nice, I just hope that it stops pulling if it loses signal from the controler (but from the discription I’m sure it does), now he should get years of use out of it unless someone from the province or feds sees it in which case he’ll have it shut down in a second and get a big ass fine.
Why is that?
Perhaps they’ll see the state owned signage holding all of the pulleys.
Because BC is in Canada and in Canada you have to apply for a permit to apply for a permit. (Oh and I’m in Canada.)
Yeah, exactly…. Except that they won’t have to shut it down and they won’t have to pay a huge fine.
I’m in BC too and you can pretty much do what you want, when you want and how you want, especially on your own recreational property.
Now if he had a ski hill on public property, it would be a different story but that sort of makes sense.
gota love BC!!
Well I hope so, I’m in Toronto where you need permission from city council to cut down a tree, so you can see where my attitude comes from.
Oh, yeah… Things are definitely different in the city. They want to maintain as much of the “green” materials as possible but it’s different for recreational and commercial property.
This needs WAY more brakes/safety interlocks/kill switches/guard covers. Especially with the gear reduction, something like that has the serious potential to de-scalp or kill.
Yeah, sure…
Or just put a sign next to it saying
“STAY THE FUCK AWAY!”.
As long as the guy himself knows to disable it before he goes tinkering, where’s the danger? It’s not designed to be used by the public. A little wire fence around it would do if there’s kids about.
let me guess, you’re one of those people who would sue a place if your coffee was too hot, right?
FWIW Back in the day (1905-1930), Popular Mechanics Shop Notes described a similar setup that used a capstan bolted on the axle of a car in place of the wheel. As I recall it relied on the user tensioning the rope to initiate motion..
Long term this is much better of course.
I remember seeing one like that in Popular Mechanics too. It must have been later than the 30’s though because I remember seeing it in one of my dad’s Popular Mechanics magazines and he was born in 1934. My guess is that the one I saw was from about the early to mid-40’s.
I believe you may have saw an article on how to build a rope tow in the Oct. 1949 edition of Popular Mechanics.
The Tav-2 is a CVT and provides first stage load variable reduction. There is a safety gate a wireless estop and a wired estop. The control works by a deadman style trigger and if you let go of the lanyard your released. but really your never closer than the 7foot lanyard to any pulley or the cable itself. It will be getting a few more guards. The multiple pulleys are to get more traction on the cable with less tension. No problem with power at all. The ride time is only 1 minute. I get the underpowered comment but it would take us into a whole different magnitude of tech to go much bigger. The gas consumption is very low not so sure with a car engine. Never mind lifting it.
Awesome build dude!
Is that a sealed lunchbox the electronics are mounted in? Good choice if so, cheap and effective.
Oh I should add theres a video on you tube http://youtu.be/3yyXRBPijG0
Looks cool, but I’m pretty annoyed that I have to log in to some stupid forum to see pictures of this thing.
so, instead of logging in and looking at it, I’ll just make my on assumptions that this thing actually sucks and isn’t well designed.
TO THE REST OF THIS COMMUNITY: Please don’t start doing this. For tons of people, this extra step isn’t worth it to look at some pictures, so fewer people will see your work.
@anyone: Well as long as you base your opinions of what “sucks” or “isn’t well designed” with such balance and critical thinking, it’s all good.
of course. All decent engineers assume the worst before until evidence is shown to suggest otherwise. Because the work is too difficult to access (yes, by a signup/login it is too difficult for this scope of this website), the evidence is inaccessible and therefore the entire work sucks.
All I really want to see happen is people don’t bother looking at his work and that this type of thing doesn’t happen again.
When I see things like that, I’m always asking myself why I still live in a City. I must have done something wrong.
Love it,
Cheers, Nico
I think it helps that (for instance) Vancouver has it’s okole backed up against the mountains, so the transition from city to country can be pretty quick.
Yup, we do it better here. :)
Seriously though great build, and was worth the registration.
the snow is depressing me but god thats a nice view
“Normally we like to link to similar projects, but so far this is the only ski lift we’ve covered”
Maybe I’m coming from a different planet, but on my monitor it looks very similar to:
http://hackaday.com/2011/03/01/super-winch-makes-sledding-100-more-fun/
Actually the road sign was a homemade sign that someone used to identify their lane it’s 1-4 aluminum and they taped on their own letters. It was the same name as the landowner
Actually the road sign was a homemade sign that someone used to identify their lane it’s 1-4 aluminum and they taped on their own letters. It was the same name as the landowner
That other video scares me but similar it would never handle this kind of slope your hands are not strong enough great project but the ripe path scares me
What band is playing in the background of this video?
AC/DC, Its a Long way to the Top.
Classic stuff.
Ours (the other post linked to) is very similar mechanically. Great job, guys! Your pulleys are very much like something I’ve been wanting to try but haven’t gotten around to.
FWIW, I’d wager the slope we use it on is pretty close to the same steepness (unless your hill is rock…)
and you’re right – hands cannot hang on very long! Just wanted to clarify that you’re knocking the attachment method (which admittedly was poor last year), not the machine. The winch should deadlift ~800 lbs. We snapped our amsteel blue line about a 1/2 dozen times 2 weeks ago, until we got the remote to feather the takeoff better.
Only problem here is not enough snow. Would love to have your weather!
At times when your pulling up drop offs and things and are heading straight up for a second or so you really get to like the harness. I’d love to have a more open slope but all hells gonna break loose with a brush saw this summer. I was concerned about the rope paths getting tangled up on the drive wheel.. But seriously whats to knock? it rocks dude no competition required.
Our biggest problem at this time of year is keeping the cable up out of the snow when we aren’t using it. We have about 4 to 5 feet of snow on the ground right now. and had about 3 feet fall this week. Look up skiwhitewater to see our local hill.
Can you give more detail on how you spliced the cable to make a loop? Also, how does the lanyard grip the cable?
I have a similar lift purchased from http://www.skiliftportabletow.com/. Unfortunately it has a number of design flaws which need to be fixed before it is usable.
Is it unusable? It Looks great on the company video.
What are the design flaws? I just found out about it and wanted to get one for next winter..
Where do I start?
The clamp that grips the cable is does not work. It either does not grip or slips and ruins the cable leading to tangles and eventually breakage.
The mounting system for both the motor and pulley is not strong or stable enough for the tension put on the wire by the skier. This causes the wire to derail off the pulley system.
The throttle system is also not great. It either pulls way too fast, jerking the skier’s arms, or stalls when the skier pulls. It is difficult to find the perfect setting.
In three seasons of trying I managed two good ski days with it before it broke. The cable snapped and the vendor refuses to even give me advice on how to fix it.
The included operating instructions are useless and there is no customer support. Buy at your own risk.
That said, I will be trying to modify it this summer to use rope and get it working for the winter. It would have been easier to start from scratch like some of the other projects you can find online.
I am very interested in replicating your tow. How can I get in contact with you for direction. We own a perfect piece of property and have dreamed to do this on it. We’re located right next to silverton mountain ski area in silverton colorado. Help us make sour dream come true!