MR16 Vacuum Lifter

by David Peters

Recently, Wood's Powr-Grip was asked to design and build a custom lifter, intended for a special job. Glass Solutions, Inc. out of Illinois had a job that required the installation of heavy glass curtain wall. The curtain wall panels would be 427" [1085 cm] long and 39" [99 cm] wide and weigh in around 4,000 lbs [1814 kg]. A below-the-hook vacuum lifter would be required to rotate the material, for ease of installation, and its frame would be required to hold up under repetitive use.

Upon first look, Glass Solutions felt that the Wood's Powr-Grip MR16 Vacuum Lifter had the features best suited for the job. With a maximum pad spread up to 169" [4293 mm] in length and a width between 12" [205 mm] and 49" [1245 mm], a DC power source and 360° of manual, edgewise rotation, the MR16 appeared to be the most likely candidate. Unfortunately, the lifting capacity was not high enough to get the job done.

Glass Solutions supplied the material specifications to the Powr-Grip Engineering department and they went to work defining ways to make the MR16 suitable for the task.

The first consideration was the weight and thickness of the curtain wall. The vacuum lifter would have to be designed to support a load with center of gravity located 5" [13 cm] outward from the pad frame, and it would have to repeatedly support a load of 4,200 lbs [1905 kg].

The second consideration would be the rotational movement. Due to the additional weight, the lift bar would have to be specially designed to safely handle the load. Engineering set out to develop a more robust design solution.

The MR16 comes well equipped: It uses four to sixteen 11" [28 cm] lipped vacuum pads, with capacities varying between 700 and 2800 lbs [320 and 1270 kg], depending on how many pads are in use.

In the final analysis, Engineering addressed the challenge by substituting steel for the standard aluminum pad frame. The steel gave the frame the needed strength for the higher capacity load. The lift bar is routinely made of steel, but to increase the load capacity, a lift bar was fabricated from 6" [15 cm] by 8" [20 cm] stock with 3/8" [9.5 mm] thick walls to replace the standard 4" [10 cm] by 4" [10 cm] stock with 1/4" [6.4 mm] walls. Finally, the standard polymer bearings were replaced with roller bearings, to reduce friction while the load is being rotated. Coupled with a standard 3-SCFM vacuum pump, and supplied with an optional remote control system, this custom MR1611LDCS was ready for action.

Wood's Powr-Grip frequently adapts its products to meet the specific lifting needs of its customers. If you have requirements that fall outside the range of operation for our standard vacuum lifters, visit the Wood's Powr-Grip Authorized Dealer nearest you, or contact a Wood's Powr-Grip Technical Sales Representative. We'll be happy to assist in finding or developing a suitable vacuum lifter solution.


David Peters had more than 30 years experience in sales and marketing. He was the marketing associate for Wood's Powr-Grip Co., Inc., responsible for interactive marketing, tracking, market research and new product introduction.