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My MaxJax has been shipped. I've marked the locations of radiant heating tubes on my floor. I've procured a scary-looking drill bit for my rotary hammer. I've studied the Wej-it anchor installation controversy. I have a plan for a 240 volt connection - the lift shall rise with enthusiasm! A remaining uncertainty has been how to get the lift off the truck and into my garage.
I stopped by my small-town lumbar yard, and for $30, they'll accept delivery from the freight company, load it onto one of their crane-equipped flatbeds, and set it right into my garage.
I've also studied the plumbing of the radiant heat system; there are no valves to isolate a punctured loop.
I had the luxury to being close enough to Moorpark to just drive over with my utility trailer behind K's 4Runner to get the lift. It was obviously a rare event for the vendor. They dropped the lift onto the trailer, I secured it and headed home. Once there, I unstrapped and unbolted the pieces on the trailer, moving them one by one into the garage for assembly. No issues doing the unload this way single-handed.
Both Rob and I have the power unit wall-mounted. I bought extension hose and connectors separately for the first installation. Learning from that, Rob routed his through pre-placed piping in the ceiling of his garage. As delivered, the power unit sits on a little wheeled cart, and needs to be placed right at the end of the car, with hoses under the corners. Extending the hoses (at least one) lets you move the power unit out of the way. Mine sits on the wall next to the garage door. Rob's is on the wall adjacent to one of the columns.
I wouldn't bother wiring the motor and garage for 240V. The run-time for the motor isn't enough to cause any appreciable power savings with 240V vs 120V. Unless you already have the power there, the costs for the extra breakers and the pigtail won't show savings for somewhere north of 20 years.
Share pics of your installation when you get it done. I love looking at other peoples' garages and workbays.
The manual I downloaded says I should have a 30A breaker for a 120 volt hookup, for which an electrical inspector would demand 10-gage wire. Oddly, Danmar suggests a 25A breaker for a 240-volt hookup; I'd expect 15A, but motors are strange. I have 12-gage wires to 240V outlets already, but I co-opted their breaker for another purpose; I have a little re-arranging in the panel to hook 'em up again.
The nameplate data from the motor is not in the manual - what's it say?
I don't think the reduced kWh factor is the thing behind a 240V motor; I though it had something to do with power, longevity, acceleration - you know, to run like a V8 rather than a candy-*** flat six.
FWIW....Wej-it is only one manufacturer of drop in mechanical anchors.
ITW Red Head's Multiset II 5/8 drop in requires 7/8 hole w/drill depth of 2 .5". Pull out & shear values based on concrete's PSI are listed on page 69 of the attached link.
I can go 113, 125 or 137 (see below). I'm thinking 125, but you can talk me into 137. Danmar's suggestions for a full size pick up goes up to only 130, but my one experience with a lift tells me that 928s are odd.
"Chian". Yup. I note their instructions for installing the anchors are still wrong (per Wej-it). I'm getting a rolling stool with Z-rated tires.
I ran it from a standard 15A 120V circuit in my previous garage. Since the new garage was a from-scratch effort, there's a 20A 120V circuit powering the lift pump now. Sticker on the motor says 15A@120V at maximum motor load. I never tripped a breaker on the 15A circuit, even with the heaviest car we owned on it (4400#). The new house has arc-fault protection plus the GFI, and I have tripped that once when I apparently wasn't pushing hard enough on the button when I started lifting. My usual practice is to bring the carriages and pads up until they just touch the car. Then verify the correct contact with lift points before lifting the rest of the way. So the first seconds are relatively no-load, and that's when I was bumping the button and tripped the arc-fault protection. If you are wiring into your existing panel, you won't need arc-fault protection. My lift outlet is mounted high enough off (6') the floor to not need arc-fault or GFI protection, but I put that breaker in there anyway.
Bottom line, and one of the Max-Jax selling points is that it doesn't need anything more than a standard outlet.
On the anchors-- the common locally-available RedHead anchors all have studs sticking out of the floor. The PD58 Wedjit anchors are female, so nothing sticks out of the floor when there isn't a lift in place. The Wedjits have a wedge sleeve on the outside so the anchor gets tighter as you pull up on it. Thelinked Redheads have a wedge driven in to expand the bottom. I like the heavier ratings on the Redheads too. I'd be tempted to order some and the setting tool if I were starting from scratch with no anchors at all in hand. So far no movement detected on any of the Wedjits that I've used.
I found some plastic chassis plugs with flat tops on Amazon that sit in the holes and shield them when the columns aren't there. (see picture above with tape measure) So far so good with the Wedjits in two of my own installations. I think Rob bought some epoxy anchors but we had no problems setting the supplied Wedjits in his floor, save one bit of steel mat in the last hole. He used a rebar cutter bit and it sailed through the steel. But that's not an anchor problem.
On the anchors-- the common locally-available RedHead anchors all have studs sticking out of the floor.
There are many ITW Red Head distributors nationwide that sell thousands of these "flush" drop-in anchors on a regular basis......
Found mostly at specialty construction/fastener supply houses...they will sell to anybody who is still breathing.
I was in the business for too long.
EDIT:
Many other brands have the same spec...Powers/Rawl, Simpson, USE, HILTI etc etc...call a distributor & tell them you need 2.5" max embedment on a 5/8" diameter, 7/8" drill diameter, drop-in anchor. Most garage slabs are at least 3" thick...if not I'd probably forget a MAXJAX. The concrete might fail before the fastener under load.
What you need is some super-duper Doppler ultrasound probe like the vascular surgeons use to check blood flow. Turn on the pump for the radiant heating, and map out where there's flow by Doppler.
I would let the floor get really cold then turn the heat on and look at it with a Flir or inexpensive Gen 1 Night Vision camera from Harbor Freight. You'll see exactly where the radiant tubing is located.
There are many ITW Red Head distributors nationwide that sell thousands of these "flush" drop-in anchors on a regular basis......
Found mostly at specialty construction/fastener supply houses...they will sell to anybody who is still breathing.
I was in the business for too long.
EDIT:
Many other brands have the same spec...Powers/Rawl, Simpson, USE, HILTI etc etc...call a distributor & tell them you need 2.5" max embedment on a 5/8" diameter, 7/8" drill diameter, drop-in anchor. Most garage slabs are at least 3" thick...if not I'd probably forget a MAXJAX. The concrete might fail before the fastener under load.
No doubt there are other options than the supplied anchors. Unless the supplied anchors are somehow deficient, no real need to look elsewhere. When we relocated, I looked casually at the local big-box home-hardware stores. Then ordered a couple boxes of the same anchors I'd used previously. I still had part of a box left over, so no issues getting the results I was looking for. I know there are some naysayers on using the Wedjit anchors. I looked at Wedjit's load ratings, did a quick load model of the MaxJax with the heaviest car I own at full arm extension and full height, and still had more than 4x the required strength even with UBC zone 4 x 1.5 dynamic loading figured in. I'm not worried about the anchors.
I'm at 132" on my maxjax, which works just fine for a 928, my Honda Odyssey, and my wife's CLK550. at 145" I think you're going to be near (beyond?) the limit of the arms' extension for a Smart car.
Rob, are you measuring 132" from the rear of the column base plates?
I want to set my MaxJax for the 928, Cayenne and Ford Focus.....thx
The measurements mentioned here are always from the outside edge of the baseplates, furthest from the car.
I will be putting mine in next week, I think. I may place one post, move the car in and see how close I can get to it and still swing the arms past the tires and under the lift points - that's a critical dimension. Most other vehicles are either narrower or have a longer wheelbase; the 928 is unusually wide and short, based on my one experience on a lift.
12-04-2014, 12:03 AM
