Air Pads

The only thing I know about this technique is that it is used by fire services and rescue personel to rescue people from building collapses, etc. Does your school have an auto shop? At our high school we moved our 2400 pound bridgeport clone from the shipping crate outside to an indoor shop using 5 2 1/2 ton rolling hydraulic shop jacks borrowed from the autoshop next door. These are the kind of jacks used by mechanics to lift up cars without the big floor lift, and have steel rollers to allow them to move loads as well as lift. We simply slid the jacks under the pallet the machine sat on, jacked it up, removed the remnants of the pallet, and then muscled the machine into the room, pushing and repositioning the jacks to move around obstacles. Thus the need for 5 jacks. You need one for each corner and one to shift the weight onto in order to reposition the jacks. Hope this is useful. Let me know if you have any other questions. Eagle Strike Robotics Team, Los Altos High School

Out where I used to work, they use air pallets to move things, heavy things. One of the possible problems is having a smooth level floor. At work they spent a fair bit to get a level floor. Nothing like having 60 tons wanting to go to the low spot. The other thing that I never have understood is they use fairly high pressure air which ends up being not very high pressure under the pallet. I think the reason is so the hoses are not any bigger than they are. If I were designing the system, I would look at using a ring compressor mounted on the pallet.

Dan

Rough and ready pads are simply made by drilling one or more holes in a 1/4" or thicker steel plate that is plumbed with air lines to the hole(s), then slid under the machine. Air is applied to the airlines and the plate slides on a very thing cushion of air. Just remember..inertia and kinetic energy still remain.

Once you get it moving...its going to be hard to stop unless you move slow.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the s*it out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

We used to use that technology at the factory to move machinery. Looking at the specs, they use a lot of air. The smallest unit requires

Richard

Errol Groff wrote:

Errol Groff wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Errol, Do not know of any website off-hand, but we use these almost daily at work to move machinery. (Yes, we move equipment that often.....*sigh*) You need a fairly smooth, level floor. Use aluminum flashing taped down over expansion joints in the floors. These use the same principle as a hovercraft. Each pad is independetly adjustable for height/flotation with the regulators on the control unit. We routinely move 7000kg (15,000lb+) machines with only 3 people, its that easy to move around once it's floating. I would most definately suggest purchasing the equipment to do this, it is specially designed. Home brew may be very, very unsafe. Hate to see a home brew bladder blow out on a corner while you are floating a machine. Probably get someone really hurt.

Nope, but you could try a cheapish experiment. Piece of plywood, (or two) route a bunch of grooves across the bottom, drill a hole where convenient, lacquer the s*it out of it, and apply air. If it doesn't work, add some legs and call it a table.

Do a web lookup on Hovercraft - plenty of advice on design, construction, skirt material and weight to air volume/pressure.

Years ago in the UK Pickfords Heavy Haulage had the brilliant idea to use a hover skirt on its heavy low loader. Well it was brilliant until the first sewer manhole cover and a lot or irate locals sitting on their high pressure toilets. The most expensive single use hover skirt ever made.

LOL, now that's funny.

Karl

Try

Yes, It works, but rough and ready is a pretty good description. I had to move a liquid CO2 storage tank in the brewery in Fiji years ago. We made up some pads out of mild steel plate and welded a 1/4" rod around the outside of them to form a plenum chamber. They were about 2 feet in diameter. We put

Tom

Errol I've been involved with moving equipment with aerogo pads for quite a few years in different plants. Most of my work is on tiled floors and these things are great. However if the floor is not well glued you can pop a lot of tiles loose. I actually observed a tile 8-10 feet away from the pad pop up. I've also witnessed a whole concrete pad pop up. We parked a machine over a hole drilled in the concrete and enough air got under the floor to tilt up a 4x6' section and the dust storm horrendous till the air got shut down. I've got other stories but believe me that these things can be dangerous in the wrong hands.