Pelloby overhead and gantry cranes are often designed to lift many tens of tonnes, however for this news post we’re focusing on the other end of the spectrum by looking at a 50kg knuckle jib crane.
Our client required a lightweight lifting solution to help lift bioreactor motors & head plates within a fermentation laboratory for maintenance and cleaning purposes.
The articulated nature of a knuckle jib’s arm provided an advantage over a traditional jib models for this particular application. The compact nature of the work space and close proximity of the machinery that the crane need to access meant that a regular jib arm wouldn’t have been able to reach all the required locations, whereas the knuckle jib was able to fold back in on itself to get to closer machines and extend to serve those further away. The nature of knuckle jib cranes mean that often they can offer an improved max height of lift over regular jibs in compact indoor workstations as was the case in this project.

Before Installation – The Compact Work Space
50kg Knuckle Jib Crane Design
The jib was designed to provide a 2.2 metre height of lift and the total hook radius along the arm was 2.9 metres (with both the inner and outer sections being an equal 1.45 metres in length).
A Yale 250kg electric chain hoist was fixed to the end of the jib crane’s arm via two lug suspension point, which was operated via a pendant hoist control. The rotation of the 50kg knuckle jib crane was designed to be performed manually.
The total slewing angle on the inner part of the arm was 118° on either side, whereas a maximum rotation of 270° was available at point of articulation for the outer section. The two parts of the arm are joined via a hex head steel bolt and series of nuts and washers

The 50kg Knuckle Jib Crane Design – After Installation
The various departments at Pelloby were able to work with this client from design and manufacture, right through to delivery, installation and final commissioning.
If you are interested in finding out more about Pelloby’s knuckle jib cranes give our sales team a call on 01952 586626 or email sales@pelloby.com.