Rope hoists

The commonly used hoist in today’s worldwide market is an electrically powered hoist. These are either the chain hoist type or the wire rope hoist type.

These days the most commonly used hoists are packaged hoists. Built as one unit in a single housing compartment and generally designed for a ten-year life span. The life span calculation depends on the industry standard when doing the calculation. The more common small portable hoists come in two main varieties: firstly, the chain hoist or chain block and secondly, the wire rope. Chain hoists may have a lever to actuate the hoist or have a loop of the operating chain that one pulls through the block. This is generally referred to as a “chain fall”, which then initiates the block to take up the main lifting chain.

For a given rated load, wire rope is lighter in weight per unit length but overall length is constrained by the drum distance that the cable must be wound onto. The lift chain of a chain hoist is far bigger than the lift wheel over which chain may function. In this way, a high-performance chain hoist may be of a significantly smaller physical size than a wire rope hoist rated at a similar working load.