telescoping lift
Here is a Paint-hacked drawing of the telescoping lift I was talking about. This one uses 1/2" aluminum angle and goes to 14".
I suppose it can be scaled up and modified to elimiate the sliding metal contact, or even some real bearing pads will suffice. It can probably be done with 1" aluminum square tube from Home Depot.
Actuated using cables that tie each stage(in this case there's only one and a half) to the one before it, so a big winch can be used to raise it.
It's more work than drawer slides(which can probably be used in conjunction with the design) but I think it will be much lighter for a given size/height, and no "screwy" components.
Does anyone know what this is actually called? I have seen it on several ceiling service lifts and a few forklifts. Most of them actually did use anchored cables instead of nested cylinders.
From: Team Test Bot
