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Any opinions on ErgoSafe's new cylinder lift?

sfriedberg

Diamond
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Location
Oregon, USA
I'm about to get an oxy-propane cutting rig, and will be using 200cf or 300cf oxygen cylinders. My local welding gas outfit does exchanges at a dock sized for large trucks. I've been able to man-handle my 125cf or 150cf cylinders up and down from the dock, but as I get older the idea of wrestling cylinders twice that weight does not excite me in any positive way. So I went looking for portable cylinder lifts. Lots of handtrucks, not so many lifts.

Today I ran across Ergo Safe's ECL (ergonomic cylinder lift). I can't tell if this is a brand new company or product, or an existing company that just recently joined the Internet. Anybody have any experience with this cylinder lift, good or bad?

For that matter, anyone have recommendations for portable cylinder lifts that get up to or down from a trailer height dock (call it 48" high)? The Vestil winch-on-a-handtruck doesn't get nearly high enough.

I am mostly concerned with this one dock situation (although there is always the smaller matter of lifting on and off of shop carts), so something that sat on the dock edge, lifted the tank high enough for the center of mass to be above the dock edge, and pivoted the tank from flat on the dock (sticking over the edge) to upright (ready to be lowered to the ground), and was itself portable (I gotta lift it up there) would also solve my problem.

Thanks in advance for any replies.
 
You need a new supplier. The company we deal with has burly young guys who are happy to load and unload cylinders
when we're picking up or returning bottles--I haven't had to lift one off the dock for years. At home may be a different situation...
 
I figured someone would give that response. My current supplier is farther away and less convenient than my local AirGas. But there are many reasons I no longer spend my money (and time) at the local AirGas.

I'd like to keep this thread focused on portable cylinder lifts.
 
I just lean my bottles against the truck, then lift them on. Only lift about 85% of the weight then. The problem with a lift is it will never be where you want it when you need it.

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Shoulder height on a 200cf bottle is about 51". Dock height is about 48". Not much leverage there with the fulcrum at the top end, certainly not the 85% advantage you have with a lower bed height. The tilting cylinder lifts do use that basic principle, but the fulcrum is built in to the lift and you can clamp the bottle as close to the balance point as you need to.

I am just not fool enough anymore (or young enough) to heave a 115lb (200cf tare weight) or 140lb (300 cf) dead weight 4 feet off the ground, or lower a somewhat heavier one safely to the ground from the same height. The smaller 125cf or 150cf cylinders only run about 60-70lb tare weight, and I thought I was living dangerously (for my health) heaving them up to the dock. As for the lift not being there when I need it, the plan is to take the lift to the exchange site.

So, I would like to return the subject of discussion to portable cylinder lifts, any experiences or recommendations, good or bad.
 
Hoestly the best option i have found is the half size cylinders, the std large cylinders over here generally weigh in the 80-90Kg range and im done even attempting to lift those after blowing out what was my better knee 9lost a good 3 weeks of work recovering before i could even stand long enough to do anything) putting one on the back of a mig set. Now a days at a customer if they don't have lifting gear and only full size cylinders i just depart, im done fucking my self up to save a few quid on bottle refills and rentals.

Best advice, find a half size bottle supplier and don't risk the injuries of handling something too big and too heavy to safely handle by hand! Your body will thank you in years to come, because even if you find a gizmo’s to do the lifting, you still gotta move em around and its just not safe IME, its when not if they topple and you make a grab for em.
 
I have 3 different size bottles. T, S, and another size smaller. I only bring the T to the job if I'm doing a large sanitary or purged pipe job. I normally bring the S tanks for "large" jobs and the smaller tank for 80% of my work. I'm only 35, but I take care of myself and wear knee pads too. In the life of my business, I have lifted a T size bottle about 10 times into/out of a truck. Mostly that's the oxygen bottle. I also do a lot of work in upstairs craw spaces and such. I see other contractors send their young ones up with crappy bottle carts.

I did a job one time where I had to purge a 600' line to install a broken sanitary T, and for stupid sake, they didn't have me install a valve so we didn't have to purge the whole line again.... Anyways, I just left the bottles outside and found an existing hole I ran a 1/2" line from outside. Way easier then trying to carry all that weight for a 1 day job.

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