Motorpickle DIY

you are all a bad influence......

I decided to build my own XLR pocket pickle as several of the local vendors have XLR pickle based hoists. Below is the list of parts I used. Also attached are some pictures.

I'm generally in favor of DIY stuff, but there are a few things here that give me pause, mainly because this is working with what I assume is a line-voltage circuit. If the hoists use a low voltage control system then most of these concerns aren't really applicable and I've just proven how little I know about the inner guts of these hoists.

The housing is aluminum, right? Should any wire or terminal short to the housing, it will be live and ungrounded. That isn't a very nice situation, to put it mildly. It would be wise at the least to line it with some sort of insulating material, maybe a plastic sheet bent to the contour of the housing. It would also be a good idea to shrink-wrap the connections, especially as they are very close to each other; it would not take much shifting about to have them short together and cause unexpected/uncontrolled movement and/or blown fuses.

Second, if the XLR cable is a standard microphone cable, it's probably not built to appropriate standards for handling a line voltage circuit. The wire itself may or may not be rated at line voltages; but I'd venture to guess that the terminations are not appropriately insulated from each other or the housing. If it's a wire specifically intended for hoist control duty, then presumably those concerns don't apply and it's been built appropriately.
 
The housing is aluminum, right? Should any wire or terminal short to the housing, it will be live and ungrounded. That isn't a very nice situation, to put it mildly. It would be wise at the least to line it with some sort of insulating material, maybe a plastic sheet bent to the contour of the housing. It would also be a good idea to shrink-wrap the connections, especially as they are very close to each other; it would not take much shifting about to have them short together and cause unexpected/uncontrolled movement and/or blown fuses.

Ah, I should have posted more. I sealed the back side of the switch with silicon to prevent this situation. Good catch.

As far as the xlr cable, the items you mention are certainly things that need to be considered when selecting the cable.

FYI, on a CM lodstar hoist the control circuit is 115v and .04 amps. So the overall current is low.
 
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Both pocket pickles side by side.


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