Maker Faire - The Pictures

Sunday Morning - The Fix!

Fixed the gouge cut into the winch by applying a bracket over the cut and bolting it to the ladder. Woks nicely. But, the cable is now cutting a gouge on the other side.... Going to reinforce the other side too.

Weather is much nicer today. Less wind, which was a problem when the folks from Eepybird did their Coke Zero (yes - they now have sponsorship) and Mentos show. The wind blew the Coke deep into the crowd. Wet. Very, very wet. And sticky.

Minor Challenge

The winch was attached too tightly to the ladder and the wire cable that hoists the Laddervator gouged a channel into the metal winch guide. Nothing too serious, but will need replacing or welding. Good news is that I've slackened the winch ties and now all is well!

Maker Faire - Setup

Early Saturday morning (too early!) headed out to Maker Faire. Setup took an hour or so, including adding the platform to the Laddervator. Now the crowds descend!

The Night Before

Late night handling all the final construction. My Dad did the welding for me (I took a MIG welding class a couple of weeks ago, but my skills are not yet fully honed). I took care of drilling holes and bolting on the wheels + grinding the support braces. Only burnt my hand once!




At the end of the evening the garage looked like this......


Tomorrow have to head out to Maker Faire at 8:00am. Doughnut time....!

Production Designs!

Designs for the production Laddervator are now (mostly) complete. Platform will distribute weight down onto the ladder (a change over the prototype). Frame will be 1 3/4" welded rectangular tube. Design now has guide wheels (same as the prototype) and adds 4 main wheels that run against the ladder.

This drawing shows how the main wheels and the guide wheels will work together:

The guide wheels will be bolted to the frame using a runner washer to allow for mechanicam dampening.


The Google Sketch-Up 3-D rendering shows what the final wheel assembly will look like.

Glad I took that welding class!

The Winch

The power for the Laddervator comes from a Warn Industries 68500 PullzAll 110 AC corded electric winch. It has forward and reverse motion and variable speed - great for fine control. There is a battery model available -- but I felt more comfortable with the grid behind me! It locks when the power is removed - a great safety feature, especially if the platform is at the top of the ladder. It's rated for 1,000 lbs - far more than I'll need. It comes wound with 15ft of 7/32" wire rope.

For the prototype its attached to the ladder with a couple of climbing slings and caribenas. The production model will hold the winch to the ladder with a custom bracket.

Here's the whole thing in action:


Since I strongly believe that the production version will not be bolted together but will be welded I took a MIG welding class at Tech Shop in Palo Alto. Informative, fun and no burnt fingers!