Creative Conners Uses the Base Rotary Gear Limit Switch in New Spotline Mini Hoist

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Creative Conners in Warren, Rhode Island is a leading automation company in theater and stage show productions. They identified a market need for an affordable, easy-to-use, compact hoist that could be used in a variety of live entertainment applications like raising and lowering chandeliers, signs, banners, and scenery up to 160lbs. In order to satisfy all safety requirements, they needed a means to automatically stop the hoist at the desired upper and lower limits.

spotline mini hoist

They needed something that matched up with the design and market philosophy of the Spotline Mini hoist: Compact, Affordable, Easy-to-Use. Creative Conners turned to the BASE rotary gear limit switch manufactured by TER and distributed by Springer Controls.

The BASE rotary gear limit switch couples directly to the hoist drive shaft and fits neatly on the end to keep the size of the Spotline Mini compact. This allows multiple Spotline Mini units to be installed side by side to create cascading scene shifts.

As the motor on the Spotline Mini turns, it turns the shaft on the BASE rotary gear limit switch. This turns cams inside the BASE unit and when the appropriate number of revolutions of the motor shaft is reached, the raised portions of the cams trigger microswitches which stops the hoist motor. This ensures that when the desired lowest and uppermost positions are reached, the hoist automatically stops without operator intervention.

The BASE rotary gear limit switch can be fitted with 2 switches to simply control the endpoints, or 4 switches can be used to allow the system to automatically slow the speed before the endpoint is reached. The BASE carries an IP67 rating making it dust and water-tight and can be made in gear ratios from 15:1 up to 1500:1 so it can be customized for the exact number of motor rotations needed to control the amount of travel needed for each application.

While there is no price on safety, the BASE is priced to help keep the Spotline Mini affordable to allow any performance space the ability to enhance their production. The microswitches are mechanically rated for 1 million operations, ensuring years of reliability.

Rotary Limit Switch Resources