My wife and I have a place in Virginia with a boatlift at the dock.
Whenever we go on the lake I have back out of the slip and wait for my
wife to bring the lift back up (it's a very slow process). When she
gets it a foot or so out of the water, I come up alongside the floater
dock and she jumps in. When we come back, we reverse the process.
The alternative is to leave the lift in the water all day.

It occurred to me that almost no one raises a garage door by hand any
more. I should think a mechanical engineer with a bit of initiative
could easily adapt a garage door opener to control a boatlift. The
major difference would be the ability to specify up or down motion
instead of the single button that toggles up or down.

Another BIG advantage to this would be the pressure sensitive stop
switch. All garage door openers have this. It seems that every year
or so I hear about someone who pulled his boat out and forgot to turn
off the slow moving lift. The inevitable result is that the lift goes
to the bottom then comes back up until it jams against the roof of the
boathouse and burns up the motor. A safety switch would eliminate
that.

I'm wondering if anyone ever heard of such a thing. Has anyone ever
seen one? I'm a bit surprised that Cabela's or West Marine doesn't
sell one. Granted, the market isn't all that large, but it seems like
such a simple adaptation. And since it's for a boat it would sell for
at 2-3 times the price of a typical garage door opener.

Hey! Are you folks at Stanley and Genie paying attention?

Alan Hannas

On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 01:10:05 GMT, Alan Hannas
wrote:
My wife and I have a place in Virginia with a boatlift at the dock.
Whenever we go on the lake I have back out of the slip and wait for my
wife to bring the lift back up (it's a very slow process). When she
gets it a foot or so out of the water, I come up alongside the floater
dock and she jumps in. When we come back, we reverse the process.
The alternative is to leave the lift in the water all day.

It occurred to me that almost no one raises a garage door by hand any
more. I should think a mechanical engineer with a bit of initiative
could easily adapt a garage door opener to control a boatlift. The
major difference would be the ability to specify up or down motion
instead of the single button that toggles up or down.

Another BIG advantage to this would be the pressure sensitive stop
switch. All garage door openers have this. It seems that every year
or so I hear about someone who pulled his boat out and forgot to turn
off the slow moving lift. The inevitable result is that the lift goes
to the bottom then comes back up until it jams against the roof of the
boathouse and burns up the motor. A safety switch would eliminate
that.

I'm wondering if anyone ever heard of such a thing. Has anyone ever
seen one? I'm a bit surprised that Cabela's or West Marine doesn't
sell one. Granted, the market isn't all that large, but it seems like
such a simple adaptation. And since it's for a boat it would sell for
at 2-3 times the price of a typical garage door opener.

Hey! Are you folks at Stanley and Genie paying attention?

-------------------------------------------

Most folks leave the lift in the water if they're only out for a day
or two, even in salt water. That said, many lifts do have a remote
control option.

I should think a mechanical engineer with a bit of initiative
could easily adapt a garage door opener to control a boatlift.

My neighbor has one, it uses a gate controller (we found out when he needed a
new remote).
I have a stop switch on my lift. It is just a cable attached to the lift cable
that pulls on a switch and shuts the unit down if you go up too far. It was
cobbled together with off the shelf electrical parts. The cable also runs
within a grab from the dock, like the stop cable on the subway so I can
immediately shut the unit down from anywhere along the dock if something goes
wrong.

My neighbor has one, it uses a gate controller (we found out when he needed a
new remote).

That is the same controller in the picture on the link the other posters
provided.