Why does this stacker have a remote control?

We bought this 110 v. Electrohydraulic stacker online by mistake, somehow we didn't look very close and thought it'd reach higher than 5 feet. Haste makes waste. Anyway when we got it, found it works fine and will lift a ton up to 5 feet. However we can't quite imagine a situation where we'd be running it from 20 feet away which is what the up/down button box on the long cord will allow. Can you think of an industry where someone would need to operate this thing from such a distance? I hope I've missed some kind of task this thing could do, since its limited reach keeps it from being used much now.

I could see it coming in handy when you're trying to do things by yourself that really should be done with 2 people.

Probably had a special use when new(?)

Maybe it was used as a faux elevator and it was controlled from the second floor..so to speak. Does the grime and crap coating the machine give you any clue as to where or what it was used for in its previous life?

Stuart

atomarc said:

Maybe it was used as a faux elevator and it was controlled from the second floor..so to speak. Does the grime and crap coating the machine give you any clue as to where or what it was used for in its previous life?

Stuart

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It must have been used as a stationary lifting unit. No battery and 115 volt pump. Also looks to have 3 forks, wide one in the middle. Covered in what looks like aluminum chips so it may have had a barrel dumper attached and the machine operator could dump the barrel into a big hopper when needed.

No clue as to previous use. Other replies have mentioned extending one's reach which makes sense. It could be used for loading and unloading skids from truck tailgates if more traditional methods weren't available, but that role doesn't explain the long cord. Someone suggested it might have been used in some operation that's hazardous, giving the operator a little distance from the hazardous area.

Scruffy887 said:

It must have been used as a stationary lifting unit. No battery and 115 volt pump. Also looks to have 3 forks, wide one in the middle. Covered in what looks like aluminum chips so it may have had a barrel dumper attached and the machine operator could dump the barrel into a big hopper when needed.

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Now there's a possibility- if it was used for dumping barrels that often contained dusty or unhealthy stuff, you'd want to have that happen a little ways away, downwind at least.

The old switch broke on the stacker. "Hey this switch off the broken hoist will work" "OK but don't cut the cable down"

Not used as a stacker. Stackers are portable BATTERY powered units. That has a cap start 115 volt pump and no battery.

Thanks, agree, just couldn't think of another name. Finally called Presto/ECOA, the maker, and the C.S. man, Tim, was helpful. He said all of their AC units come with control pendants on cords, 10 or 15 feet to order. Said many customers want longer cords on the control, like 20-25 feet, so they build those lifts to order, with either straight or spiral cord as desired. They cater to a lot of specialized applications such as production lines with baskets of stuff at various levels relative to the workers. These short lifts come in 3 different heights up to 62"? But their larger models go up to as high as 130".

I have an older one like that, a true D.C. Stacker, with very wide legs so is called a straddle stacker. Think ours goes up about 9' with 1500 lbs, so we use it where it will reach in the pallet Racks, in fact when we put those up, we left about 4" floor clearance so that machine's legs could roll underneath. That one came without battery so I just use the black-box emergency car starting device to run the stacker when needed, works fine, this one from Costco is great, has a usable tire inflator, lights, charger, gauges...