Overhead bridge cranes are commonly used in diverse industries and applications. However, not all applications are best served by a bridge crane. Other overhead cranes offer different arrangements and setups for different applications. If you’re installing a new overhead crane or want to know more about how your existing one works, continue reading to learn more about the most common types of overhead cranes.

Crane manufacturers & suppliers–Bridge Cranes

As we’ve mentioned, bridge cranes are a very common type of overhead crane. These cranes are installed inside manufacturing facilities, warehouses, and other buildings as permanent structures. A system of runways is installed throughout the building to provide material handling coverage to various locations. Then, bridges and end trucks are connected to the runways. Finally, hoists and trolleys are installed, and the electrical system, if present, is wired up.

Bridge cranes can use single-girder bridges constructed with one beam or double-girder bridges constructed with two beams. Typically, single-girder bridge cranes are ideal for light- to medium-duty applications, like Yuantai’s enclosed track Workstation Bridge Cranes with 250-4,000 pounds of lifting capacity. Double-girder bridge cranes are typically used in applications that require capacities of 15 tons or greater, or when longer bridge spans or greater hook heights are needed.

Crane manufacturers & suppliers–gantry cranes

An overhead gantry crane is essentially a fixed bridge attached to two columns with wheels. Rather than traveling along runways, a gantry crane operates directly on the ground. Some extreme-capacity gantries, such as those used for container handling at ports, may have a two-beam bridge on top of columns that travel on a track. As with overhead bridge cranes, a hoist and trolley system lifts, lowers, and moves the load.

At Yuantai, we offer four different gantry crane styles with options including adjustable heights, track mounting, power drives, and more.

Crane manufacturers & suppliers–Monorail Cranes

Much like a monorail train system, a monorail crane carries a load throughout a facility on a single suspended track. The monorail track is attached to the ceiling or a freestanding support structure. Depending on the length of the monorail crane setup, it may have multiple hoist and trolley systems, allowing operators to move multiple loads along the track.

Monorail cranes are well-suited for applications that require loads to be moved along a straight line. Many facilities that use monorail cranes do so above their assembly lines. However, monorail cranes can also incorporate curves and switches to access workstations in separate locations. Monorail cranes can even operate over a closed loop if needed.

Crane manufacturers & suppliers–jib cranes

A jib crane resembles an upside-down “L.” The most essential jib crane part is the individual beam, known as the boom, that supports the hoist and trolley to lift and move loads. The boom also supports any electrical components, air hoses, or other attachments. The boom can rotate 180 degrees or 360 degrees, allowing the crane operator to move loads along a semicircular or full circular path as needed.

Yuantai offers jib cranes with capacities up to 15 tons. These systems are ideal for applications that require operators to move loads over short distances. If your facility needs a highly reliable crane system and you don’t need to move loads over large distances, a jib crane might be the right option.

View Our System Selector and contact us to Learn More

Yuantai produces high-quality material handling overhead cranes and equipment for companies throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The welders at Yuantai are certified by the American Welding Society (AWS), so you can rest assured you’re getting reliable, top-grade products that can make your facility’s operations more streamlined and efficient. With Yuantai manufacturing facilities on both coasts, you can quickly receive the equipment you need.

Are you unsure which kind of overhead crane you need? Try using our System Selector to find the best option for your needs. Choose the options and features you need, such as travel type and capacity, and the System Selector will identify which of our crane systems offer the best solution. Feel free to use it multiple times until you find a configuration that works best for you.

If you prefer to browse our availability of parts and components, optional accessories, and complete crane systems, you can explore our complete product line. For further help, fill out our contact form, and one of our representatives will reach out to you. Let Yuantai be your source of quality, reliable material handling equipment and parts.

overhead cranes offer a safe and efficient way to transport materials or product from one point to another in a facility, workshop or warehouse where loads are heavy—typically measured in tonnage. While structurally, the runway and bridge rails of a crane provide the framework for the mechanism, it is the hoist who’s job it is to do the actual moving and lifting. No small job! Overhead cranes are installed near the ceiling of a facility for optimum clearance and the hoist lowers a hook from a chain or wire rope to pick up the load. Hoists glide along the length of a crane girder or it straddles two in heavier duty cases, either along the top (called top running) or attached to the bottom I-beam(s) if overhead space is limited (called under running). The hoist lifts objects secured onto the attached hook by chain, a woven fabric or wire rope sling or by one of several types of below-the-hook devices such as a spreader beam that serves to evenly distribute the weight of a load.

What is a Hoist?

A hoist is a mechanical device, manually, electrically, or pneumatically powered, that is used for vertical lifting, lowering or moving an object along a horizontal path. Lifting is accomplished when a wire rope or chain winds or unwinds as the hoist drum rotates. Hoists are controlled by an overhead crane operator via an attached electrical push button pendant device or can be radio controlled, remotely. A wide variety of industries use hoists in their daily business operations, such as Aerospace, Agriculture, Automotive, Computer, Construction, Chemical, Food, Logging, Marine, Manufacturing, Medical, Mining, Telecommunication, Transportation, Hospitals, Health care, Entertainment and many others.

There are a few different types of hoists that come with a variety of options such as lift weight, length of chain, lift speed and its configuration is usually defined by the lifting medium, operation and suspension. A hoists’ operation indicates the type of power used to operate the hoisting motion.

TYPES OF HOIST POWER

Manual Hoists

A manual hoist is a hoist that’s operated by hand, mainly used when a power source is not available. The advantage to using a manual hoist is that it’s portable and doesn’t require much headroom for operation. They are simple mechanisms that use chains, a hook or hooks and gears to move a load. They work when an operator pulls down on one of the chain loops on one side of the chain. This turns a pulley and lifts up the end of the other chain which has the hook. There are two types of manual hoists:

• Hand Chain Hoist, which is sometimes called a Chain fall
• Lever Hoist, which is sometimes called a Come along, a Pull or a Ratchet Hoist

You don’t have to be at the point of hookup to operate a hand chain hoist. This comes in handy if the hookup point is a number of feet above the floor. A long pull chain would allow you to operate it from the floor. While manual hoists are mainly used for vertical lifting, the lever hoist also lends itself well to horizontal or diagonal pulls and can be used in any position. The lock on the lever can be released in order to free wheel the chain through to speed up rigging time.

Both the hand chain and lever hoists are easy to use and maintain.

electric hoists

Electric hoists vertically lift and lower loads via a mechanized chain or wire rope. Due to their integration within the overhead crane system, they are not meant to be taken from one job site to another and mainly work only in one area. Like the Manual Hoist, the Electric Hoist lifts with chains and gears, a drum, a hook or hooks but also with wire rope and a motor. Many variables should be considered when choosing an electric hoist for your overhead crane, including its specific application and the environment in which it will function. These types of hoists use motors available in a variety of voltages and work duties and may come with useful accessories like a rigid hook, swivel hook, lug, and a push trolley, geared trolleyor motorized trolley allows them to be mounted to a crane, a beam or a gantry. The two types of Electric Hoists are:

• Electric Chain Hoist, where a chain is the medium used to lift and lower a load
• Wire Rope Hoist, where a wire rope is used to lift and lower a load

These hoists can lift, hold and travel with the load pending if they are mounted to a trolley. Electric Hoists need working space and the operator must be able to maintain a safe distance while the hoist is being used.

Pneumatic Hoists

A Pneumatic Hoist, also known as an Air Hoist or Air Powered Hoist, functions much in the same way as an Electric Hoist, except it’s powered by air pumped through a tube into a spin rotor that engages the gears to operate. The special advantage of an air hoist is that it is capable of positioning and placing a load precisely and can move faster than other types of hoists. Pneumatic Hoists are also known as the workhorse of hoists because they are not susceptible to over-heating the way electric hoists are, so they can be used for extended hours, even all day, every day.

The two types of Air Hoists are:

• Air Chain Hoist, where a chain is the medium used to lift and lower a load
• Wire Rope Air Hoist, where a wire rope is used to lift and lower a load

Hoists are one of the most versatile and useful tools available. Whether you use them for rigging a load in the back of your truck or to move massive spools of steel from one side of a warehouse to another or to lift a ship out of a body of water and into a shipyard, you’ll find a trusty hoist in one form or another on the job.

If you need some help picking a hoist for your overhead crane application or have any questions, feel free to contact me!

When budgeting for an overhead crane for your business, you may wonder what costs lay ahead of you. However, if you’re ready to outfit your facility with a crane or cranes, then you may have already assessed the return on investment for such a purchase. Overhead cranes can increase efficiency, productivity, and worker safety in your production process, and any business owner will tell you that’s worth a lot! An overhead bridge crane is a massive piece of mechanical equipment, so you might guess that materials would significantly contribute to cost. But what other variables might be involved in affecting your crane company’s pricing, and what are you getting for your money?

What Type of Crane Do You Need?

When budgeting for an overhead crane for your business, you may wonder what costs lay ahead of you. However, if you’re ready to outfit your facility with a crane or cranes, then you may have already assessed the return on investment for such a purchase. Overhead cranes can increase efficiency, productivity, and worker safety in your production process, and any business owner will tell you that’s worth a lot! An overhead bridge crane is a massive piece of mechanical equipment, so you might guess that materials would significantly contribute to cost. But what other variables might be involved in affecting your crane company’s pricing, and what are you getting for your money?

What Type of Crane Do You Need?

There are several different types of cranes, each suited to a particular application. For example, suppose a jib crane, gantry crane, or free-standing workstation crane works for your needs. In that case, those simpler and relatively more compact lifting systems may cost substantially less than a double girder overhead bridge crane used for moving significantly larger loads farther. This would be due to the increased complexity of the engineering for a bridge crane, more materials to build it, and the additional components.

The Span of Crane

The span of a bridge crane is the length between its runway tracks, in other words, the length of the crane. The longer the crane, the greater the need for additional engineering requirements and the more steel used to build bigger crane girders. The price of steel can also fluctuate due to market value in the world economy, and the final cost of your overhead crane will be dependent on this factor. For this reason, a double girder crane will be more expensive than a single girder bridge crane.

The Runway of Crane

Do you plan on saving money by installing a new crane onto an existing runway in your workspace? If so, you must be sure that the old structure can support the weight and loading of the new crane, and if not, modifications may be needed, which could incur more expense. How long of a distance will your crane travel along the runway? The longer the runway, the more lifts your crane can make per hour, but it also requires more materials to build it. If a new runway system is required, is the existing floor able to support the crane’s load, and will the runway tie back to the building? For example, an engineering consultation might reveal that you need support columns or footer and tie-back requirements to stabilize your building/structure enough to handle the imposed loads of a system that may sway back and forth. Any type of existing obstructions, other machinery, or overhead impediments in your workspace that should be considered when installing the runway or crane may add additional costs as well.

Operating Speed

If material processing requires your crane to make fast and frequent lifts per hour, this may create stress and wear on your components. Therefore, parts will likely need to be replaced sooner than and more often than a slower moving crane. In addition, cost adders are typical for high operating speeds due to the increased horsepower required.

Capacity of Crane

Is your crane lifting 5 tons of materials at a time or upwards of 150 tons? Are you using any below-the-hook devices? The maximum load your crane can lift can make a difference in its total cost. Cranes built to withstand larger capacity loads will require the energy, engineering, materials and components to support excessive weights. At the same time, lighter lifts can be accomplished using much less from smaller and less expensive types of cranes such as workstation cranes.

Duty Cycle

Expect to pay more for larger, heavy-duty process cranes that require robust components, use of more raw materials to build and special engineering to withstand incredibly taxing conditions.

Explosion-Proof Cranes

Additionally, explosion-proof cranes in high-hazard environments may also bite into your budget. Do you work with flammable, toxic vapors or gasses, combustible metal, carbon or grain dust? There may be concentrations of hazardous substances in the air of your crane’s working environment or materials that are handled or processed in your facility. If so, an engineer will determine your crane’s Explosion Proof Classification and what type of Spark Resistance components and features or safety limits your crane will need to prevent fires or explosions on the worksite.

Transportation

How far away from your facility is located from the source of your manufactured final product, oil prices and cargos costs and taxes will also affect overhead crane affordability.
Crane Controls
What method will your crane operator use to move and load materials with your crane? On the higher end, some larger, heavy-duty bridge cranes may have a built-in cab as a control center for your operator to maneuver close to the equipment, allowing real-time monitoring of the crane’s operations. Hand-held devices are significantly less expensive. Radio controls for ground-level free-roaming operations or pendant controls that hang directly from the hoist can be purchased at affordable prices and custom configured for versatility.

Maintenance & Inspection Costs

Don’t forget about adding the cost of a proper maintenance and inspection program into your overall ongoing budget. Overhead bridge cranes are required to have OSHA mandated periodic inspection and preventative programs based on the OEM recommendations. However, the intervals are dependent on the duty cycle, typically ranging from one to four times a year performed by a qualified technician. When you are ready to make a purchase, there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss all aspects of your crane’s specific application thoroughly to make sure you get the perfect solution at the most economical price. If you have any questions, I can help you walk through about your crane.

overhead cranes are robust machines that generally enjoy a long lifespan. They can be an integral part of a business’ production and companies depend on them to work hard processing or moving materials. Whether they are used every day, all day or only periodically, over time, components or parts will wear down and you must decide on the most cost-worthy or efficient approach—to replace your crane or update worn parts?

Under what conditions might you want to modernize a crane, hoist or other components?

The most common reason is that an manufacturer no longer makes or supports the customer’s crane parts or components after so many years and they become obsolete. Another reason would be that the customer has increased their production rates so they’ve now grown into the need for a crane with an increased duty cycle and/or capacity.

Heavy process cranes undergo an extreme amount of stress due to high duty cycles and typically lift repetitive loads of 70% or higher of their rated capacity. This creates fatigue in not only individual components but also the crane structure itself. We start seeing cracks in girders, end trucks, girder to end truck connections, and supporting structures such as legs. This would seemingly be the “end of life cycle” in a crane but it can also be an opportunity to revitalize it by modernizing parts or components.

Some product manufacturers modernize based on changing a product. An example of “re-tooling”, as some call it, is if a customer has one 10 ton hoist on their crane but their new product line will require two 5 ton hoists in order to lift the end product. These kinds of circumstances lend themselves well to a modernizing solution.

Does it save on costs to update instead of replacing a crane, parts or components?

In most cases, yes. It really depends on the crane structure’s age and exactly what the customer expects to get after the modernization. For example, if a customer wants to install new hoists and controls but also wants to change from a bridge center drive system to dual drive system, then it’s less expensive to modernize. However, if they also need new end trucks due to stress cracks being found then it may be less expensive to simply replace the entire crane due to the amount of labor that it takes to properly replace the end trucks.

There are also instances where it may make more sense, from a monetary standpoint, to replace the crane rather than modernize it. However, due to the interference on plant or facility production that a new crane installation could cause, they opt for the more expensive modernization. They may lose more money through lost production than the difference in costs associated with the more expensive option.

Are there codes to follow to make modifications to existing cranes and hoists?

Absolutely. Yuantai Crane always follows regulations on all of our repairs, modernization projects and new installations. We have selected, qualified individuals look at what needs to be done for any one project and refer to our engineering department on changes that differs from the original components. We also tend to find some components or parts on an older crane that may not meet current OSHA or CMAA guidelines even though they look good to the naked eye.

Do you have to test the new parts before using the upgraded equipment?

Yes. We perform a function test as well as a load test of 125% of its rated capacity. We also offer maintenance training for the facilities maintenance crews as well as operator training for the facilities crane/production operators.

What components of an overhead crane can be modernized?

Literally every component of a crane can be modernized or upgraded to a certain extent. Hoists, electrical controls, motors, end trucks, bridge drive units, festoon systems, even girders!

We always want to be honest and upfront with our potential client on his expectations vs. the scope of work provided to us. If the scope of work does not accomplish the client’s ultimate goals, then we are doing them a disservice. This is when we up-sell the additional upgrades that achieve their goals.

If you are considering modernizing your overhead crane and need some professional advice, contact us!