Jib Cranes

Jib Cranes Buying Guide

Freestanding jibs: full circle, real foundation. A freestanding jib rotates 360 degrees and serves everything inside its span, which is why it is the default for a machine cell, dock door, or assembly bench that gets lifted to all day. HSI builds two tiers in floor mount jib cranes: a medium duty line at 250 to 2,000 lb from about $2,360 for lighter work cells, and the heavy duty line at 500 to 10,000 lb with spans of 8 to 20 ft. The number that surprises buyers is under the baseplate: a standard freestanding jib anchors into a reinforced concrete foundation poured to the manufacturer's drawings for that capacity and span, so the real project cost is crane plus concrete plus cure time. Spec height under boom from your tallest load plus hoist and trolley headroom, and remember boom deflection eases when you buy the next capacity up.

Foundationless and forkpocket: a crane without the pour. Foundationless models spread the load through a larger baseplate into the slab you already have. HSI's guidance is concrete: a minimum of 6 inches of reinforced concrete, free of gaps, cracks, and expansion joints, with the area verified by a qualified engineer, and anchor bolts embedded at least 4-3/4 inches. The collection carries the whole install path, J type anchor bolts with washers and nuts, quick dry epoxy anchoring systems, steel hole pattern templates, and an epoxy dispenser, so anchoring day is one order rather than five. If even the slab is negotiable, the portable forkpocket jibs at 250 to 1,000 lb travel on a forklift's forks between work areas, with bases ordered hollow or filled with concrete. When the floor is thin, unknown, or tiled with expansion joints, have the engineering conversation before the crane ships, not after.

Wall and column mounted: tie rod or cantilever. When building steel can carry the load, wall and column mounted jib cranes deliver the cheapest capacity in the collection and sweep roughly 200 degrees, enough to serve a bay or feed a machine from a column. The tie rod style, from about $1,635 at 250 lb up to 10,000 lb, braces the boom with a rod above it and is the economical buy wherever headroom above the boom is not an issue. The cantilever style, from about $2,030, deletes the rod and carries the boom as a clean cantilever, buying low headroom installations and clear space above and below the boom, the pattern to pick under mezzanines and low steel. Both hang their full moment on your structure, so have an engineer confirm the wall or column before ordering, and use the J fitting kits sized to each crane type for the connection.

Mast type and articulated: the special assignments. Two designs solve problems the standard patterns cannot. Mast type jibs, 500 to 10,000 lb, bear on the floor and take their upper support from building truss or bracket, which gets you full 360 degree rotation with no special foundation, in a low headroom package; the building's top steel does what a freestanding jib's concrete would. Articulated jibs swing two pivoting arms instead of one straight boom, so the hook reaches around corners, under obstructions, and inside machines, then holds position without drift; HSI builds them freestanding from 150 to 2,000 lb. Two details finish a layout: rotational stops, at $71, limit the sweep of a manual freestanding jib wherever a wall, aisle, or machine sits inside the circle, and every jib here is manual rotation, so plan the boom's parking spot the way you plan the lift.

Getting power and air down the boom. The boom rotates; the hoist on it still needs electricity or air, and this is the detail that separates a finished installation from a cable wrapped around a mast. Top and bottom entry collectors, 4 conductor, feed power through the rotation axis so the boom turns freely without winding its own cord, and top and bottom entry swivels do the same for compressed air. Along the boom, the tight wire tagline festooning kit carries flat cable to the trolley, and air supply hoses cover spans to 20 ft. Order this hardware with the crane, because retrofitting a collector means dismantling the pivot. The hoist and trolley are separate line items in their own right, sized to the boom flange and built to ASME B30.16; the full range, manual through three phase electric, is in hoists.

When a davit crane is the better answer. If the same 500 to 1,500 lb pick happens at six stations, buy one crane and six bases instead of six jibs. A davit crane lifts out of its socket and moves: Thern's portable line runs 500 to 3,000 lb with a stationary series to 5,500 lb, OZ Lifting builds steel, CompOZite composite, carbon fiber ELITE, and telescoping Tele-Pro models, and REID's PDQ aluminum davits at 1,100 and 1,320 lb set up by one person. Choose the winch by where the work is, manual for occasional lifts, 12V DC off a truck battery, 110V AC for daily duty near power, then buy sockets, pedestal, and wall bases per station in davit cranes, with series-specific mounts, wire rope assemblies, and winch options in REID davit accessories and Thern davit accessories. Shop, truck, and gantry lifting live in the wider cranes hub.