Racor PHL-1R Pro HeavyLift 4-by-4-Foot Cable-Lifted Storage Rack
by Racor
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Racor PHL-1R Pro HeavyLift 4-by-4-Foot Cable-Lifted Storage Rack
Customer Review: > 2 yrs on: 33% failure rate, but I can't live without them...
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased 6 units in June 2008; all six were installed by Christmas 2008.
Value: After more than 2 years of use, I'm totally sold on the value of elevated storage to help keep the garage clutter-free.
Nuisance: Raising and lowering the Racor platforms takes a surprising amount of time, calories, and muscle.
Issue: As of New Years 2011, two of the units' gearboxes have failed. The crank turns, but the lift shaft/cable drum doesn't. Both became progressively more difficult to operate over time, then failed abruptly.
Question: I'd like to hear what you think would work out better in the long run -- look into replacing these gearboxes if they're available as replacement parts, or completely replace the lifts with another model as they break? Amazon is carrying Garage Gator GGR220 220-Pound Capacity Residential Motorized Storage System with Garage Gator GGR3672PS Platform Accessory for GGR220 for a little over twice the price. It is said to lift 220 lbs, and the 3 ft x 6 ft platform appears to be a better fit for my space. With about 1/2 inch clearance on each side, the Racor requires a bit of care in loading, raising, and lowering.
Also, I'm not sure if it would be smart or very silly to open the remaining functional gearboxes and pack them with some kind of lubricant like wheel bearing grease. On the minus side, they don't seem to have any seals on the pinions, and who wants petroleum stains on garage floors or on storage items? Any thoughts?
Other Background:
I don't think the load is much greater than 150 lbs per platform. I mounted them above the garage doors, so they only have about two feet of space between platform and ceiling. That allows only one layer of storage bins. Decorations predominate: Christmas decorations, Halloween decorations, Fall decorations, etc. These tend to be fairly bulky, but not very dense or heavy. For example, wire/lighted reindeer take up a lot of space, but weight very little.
I probably only raise/lower each one 3-4 times a year (I group things together so each platform is particular to a season). I don't recall the failed ones getting used any more than the others.
Blackened metal dust leaks out of both failed gearboxes. Taking one apart, the worm center tooth looks shiny and a little flat, while the drive pinion teeth look worn very thin, with 3 or 4 broken off at the drive point. The fingers get slightly black when handling the gears, but it's not clear if the lubricant (if any) is graphite, dried out petroleum product, or what? I'll go out on a limb and say that it doesn't seem as if the gearbox has enough lubricant to prevent excessive wear from relatively modest usage.
The platforms are mounted in pairs straddling each side of the garage door opener, between the door's roller tracks. This makes good use of a space that is typically unused in a high ceiling garage. When a platform is lowered, the garage door cannot be allowed to open, or it would strike the cables. We activate the garage door opener lock whenever a platform is down.
I would have loved to see an electric motor with an integral planetary gearbox available as a bolt-on option for these units. They've certainly been on the market long enough to warrant this sort of development from an active vendor who's always upgrading and improving their stock.
Customer Review: Some installation tips
Summary: 4 Stars
I loaded it with a lawnmower, a 3kVA generator, two bags of potting soil. Although the platform sagged a little, it stays up for four days so far. To be honest, it took me two days to forget the concern of the product failure and damags to my car under it. I will switch the lawn mower with snow thrower after this snow season.
During the installation, I found that one of the cable clip thread is stripped. Racor sent me a replacement cable assembly in two days. I will replace the cable clip this weekend. You should check the cable clips as the instruction says because I found some cable clips are very loose when I checked them. When tighten the clip nuts, tighten both nuts alternatively a quarter turns so that the torque to both nuts are about the same.
The most difficult step was to choose the installation location and find joists, and then place the two arms square. After I used stud finder, I drilled 1/16" holes about 3" away from the joists I found with the stud finder in order to find exact edge of the joists. Then I climbed up to the atttic and measured the distance from the 1/16" holes to joists. I used the measurement to draw exact centerline of joists on ceiling. I did not patch the 1/16" holes, but they are hardly noticeable.
After I drew the joist centerlines, I put pushpins 4ft apart and hung string to use it for future datum. Using the pushpins, I hung two more strings to make triangle to find the symmetric center on 48" apart joist centerline.
The included lag screws worked very well with me. I rubbed soap as advised in a review. And I used metric socket. I added #12 washer under the screw heads because they were not provided by RACOR.
Even with the arms hung to ceiling with keyhole and a lag screw, DO NOT drill pilot holes using the holes on the arms. Due to the nature of the hanging, the arms have free play side to side. Therefore, the pilot holes you dilled will not align when you drive lag screws to both side of the arms. One side will align, but the holes for other side will be all off by about 1/16". To prevent this, draw a templete on a piece of cardboard and then attach the templete on the ceiling with pushpins. The templete will be fixed without free play.
Use lock-tite to all screw threads. There are many screws which you cannot tighten hard to prevent unscrewing. Many parts are hollow, which means tightening hard would simply crush the parts. You should rely on lock-tite to prevent unscrewing.
The joint between axle and bearings in arms were designed to have some axial play. My joist spacing was 48 1/8" and there are about 1/2" of play left. You can pre-assemble the arm and axle to find the minimum and maximum allowed joist spacing.
The instruction does not describe the proper placement of wire grids on beams. I learned that the proper way is to place double cross wire to each end, and drive a J-bolt between the end double wires. It secures the wire grid from moving fore-aft. It also effectively pushes the end grids against center grid. However, I found one of the holes in my beam is off by about 1/16". I elongated the hole with Dremel.
My garage ceiling is 10ft high. The platform comes down to 2ft from ground and it is hard to lift my 70lbs generator over the platform. I may buy 100ft 7X7 construction vinyl coated 3/16" cable from grainger.com and replace the original cables to make the plafform reach garage floor.
Customer Review: Superb product!! My installation tips...
Summary: 5 Stars
Firstly, I equipped my four lifts with motors. These motors are 12VDC wheelchair lift motors. I power the motors with 25A battery charger/starter from Century.
Tip 1: Use the supplied lag screws, but drill a pilot hole for them with a drill bit that is the same diameter as the SHANK (the shaft part) of the screw. Racor sez to use a 1/8" bit... This is too small, and requires too much torque on the screw.
Tip 2: Assemble the t-section and two outriggers on the floor, using the four long screws for alignment of the outriggers with the t-section. Now rip from a 1x4 an edge piece 3/4" x 52" x 1/8" thick. Lay this ripping into the trough of the outriggers and t-section. Mark a centerline, the two other hole positions in the t-section, and the position of each set of four holes each outrigger. Drill these marks centered on the ripping with 1/4" bit. This is a template which you can tack to the ceiling along a joist, allowing you to accurately position each needed hole. Then have a drill driver handy with a 10mm socket. Also have a 10mm socket on a small 1/4" drive ratchet handle. The end bolts, above the wheels, are easier driven with the ratchet than by a drill driver socket. Set the first end bolt about an inch, then start each of the other three bolts for one outrigger. Draw the outrigger to within 1/4" of the ceiling. Attach the t-section using the two long screws and nuts and lag screw it in one or two places. Then attach the next outrigger with its two long screws, and set one lag screw near middle of outrigger. Once the t-section and two outriggers are loosely mounted, align the outriggers near center of the bolting slots and hand tighten the lag screws. Do not power drive the lag screws to the point of the lag screw head touching the metal. This should be hand driven only at the final tightening.
Tip #3: Use thread locker (Loc-Tite, for example) on the bolts/nuts that attach the axle halves and on the bolts/nuts that attach the outriggers to the t-section.
Tip #4: Add a pair of holes to the t-sections near the axle suspension points. Set hollow wall anchors into the ceiling, or screw into wooden members placed above these holes. This provides additional support for the overhanging portion of the t-section.
Tip #5: When you are ready to install the axle, use a piece of tie wire on one end to temporarily support the far end of the axle. Once you have the round end in place, be sure to install the retaining washer and bolt in axle end. Then on opposite end, which is supported by temporary wire, you will be able to easily install the t-section. The support wire is just a third hand in case you don't have a helper and spare ladder. You can tie the wire through outrigger holes and over to a temporary lag screw, which you have already spotted the hole for using the template, on the side where the outrigger is not yet in place.
Tip #6: Assemble the platform last, and assemble it while the side rails are already attached to the cables.
Note: Worm gear box is 14-to-1 ratio.
Customer Review: Good product. Unforgiving design.
Summary: 3 Stars
After shopping for a garage ceiling storage system, I purchased this device. I was attracted to the ability to raise and lower the platform to load and unload items. This avoids the obvious pitfalls of using a ladder to hoist large or heavy items up from the ground.
In summary, I am reasonably happy with the overall product with some exceptions mentioned below. However, I will caution potential buyers that the design of this device is unforgiving. Unless your ceiling joists are EXACTLY 48" apart (they can be 1.5" less but not more than 48"), installation will be no where near as easy as the video on the website. You may need to mount this to a rigid board first if your joists are not 48" apart. The axle is not made to be adjustable and I find this to be a major design flaw of the device.
The foundation of the system includes 3 heavy metal grates that are secured to two metal cross beams with J hooks. I had a little trouble aligning the J hooks with the holes on the metal beams. However, by far, the most trouble I had was with securing the system to the ceiling. I really did not want to mount this to a board before securing it to the ceiling for aesthetic reasons. My ceiling joists were about 49" apart (instead of 48") and this created a VERY problematic installation. You need to secure this into wood (and not just the ceiling drywall) and you cannot mount the arms of the device further than 48" apart as the axle will not be long enough. I ended up lengthening the axle by a few inches by screwing both halves of the axle together with only the first set of holes. The two halves of the axle are supposed to come together with one inside the other aligning two sets of holes on each piece. I only went as far as the first set thus making it a little longer. Then I bought some aluminum 1/2 inch metal from a hardware store and reinforced the axle by screwing it to two sides of the axle. Keep in mind that the axle is not completely load-bearing so as long as it is rigid and reinforced, the system will work fine (see my uploaded picture of the lengthened and reinforced axle).
Problems continued when I used the included hardware lag bolts to screw the arms into the ceiling joists. Using a drill, I pre-drilled the holes as instructed and used a socket wrench to screw the lag bolts to the joists. I torqued 4 of the heads off of the cheap lag bolts. Do yourself a favor and go buy some better lag bolts at a hardware store before installing this device. The included lag bolts are totally inferior. After finishing the installation, it worked as described and I loaded it with a few hundred pounds of things I had previously kept on my garage floor. I will also mention that using the included crank device to raise and lower the platform, while not overly difficult, is a good work out.
Overall, I would recommend this product IF you know your joists are no further than 48" apart (or you are comfortable mounting it to a board first) and you go buy some decent lag bolts before trying to secure it to the ceiling.
Customer Review: Here's a better approach than the manual shows
Summary: 4 Stars
I just finished my install today. Plan on at least 4 hours for this project. The joist do not have to be EXACTLY 48" as other reivews stated. That is the MOST the distance can be. You can be as close as 46 1/2. There is play in the bar that attaches the two ends.
Here's my contribution to make this easy and keep it a one person job. Get a 4 foot piece of 1 1/4 lattic piece of trim. You can find it at any big box hardware store. This will be used as your template when drilling holes.
I have a finished ceiling Before getting started, I used the 4' lattice to outline the joist. Instead of using a stud finder, which doesn't always work, I just use a finish nail to find the edges of the joist which are 1 1/2" wide. I marked the joist at one end and measured 48" down then found the edges of the joist. I put the lattice between these marks on both ends, then traced the lattice with a pencil
In step 7, you notice the only indicate 7 bolts to be installed, but 9 in step 8. You have to remove the nylon rings in order to reach all 9 bolts, but this isn't mentioned. With the nylong rings off and the arm sitting on top of the lattice piece of wood, mark all the slots in the middle with a pencil. Make sure to mark the center of the T-bracket, too. This is critical for hanging the arms by yourself.
Since the pre-drill hole size is 1/8, make the template holes one size larger at 3/16 with a drill. With the template, use a wood screw in the center template hole to temporarily attach to the joist so you have both hands free to line up the lattic to the trace marks I mentioned before. Now drill the pre-drill holes with the 1/8 bit.
The manual doesn't mention this but there are those keyhole type of holes in the middle part of the arm. BEFORE you grab the arm in step 7, but the first lag bolt in the middle pre-driller hole, leaving about 1 1/2 inch. Now pick up the arm and angle it over the lag bolt in the middle. It takes a little wiggling, but it will eventually slide in. Now tighten the lag bolt, but not 100% Now the joist is hanging hands free from one lag bolt. Now, you are free to mount the other lag bolts by yourself.
The stock lag bolts are junk. I shredded two when installing. I did install the stock lags so I could line up the two arm properly, but came back later with high quality lags of qty. 12 5/16" with a 3 1/2 length lag bolts. Trying to enlarge this existing gaps don't work very well. What I recommend is drilling BETWEEN the existing slots. First use a smaller bit to get thru the metal easier and create a pre-drill hole. I think I used a 3/16". Then I used a slightly larger bit like a 7/16" to cut a hole to allow it pass thru the new hole in the metal. Make sure you use eye protection and cover your forearms. The metal shaving are burning hot! Don't attach the 5/16" lags until Step 9 alignment is done.