Clean It Up

UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Dave Anderson on April 04, 2010, 07:36:50 am

Title: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Dave Anderson on April 04, 2010, 07:36:50 am
Does anyone here have actual prolonged use of either electric or rachet style reels for use with wfp with either 6mm or 8mm hose? say 100 meters?

Cheers
Dave.
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Mike #1 on April 04, 2010, 09:13:29 am
had the sealy retractable rachet hose reel fitted with 6mm hose for about 8 months now no coplaints at all www.pvrdirect.co.uk
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: ♠Winp®oClean♠ on April 04, 2010, 10:24:21 am
There is someone who uses electric reels on here but you'll need either a tardis or a DMC DeLorean as (apparently) he lives two years in the future of the rest of us! ;)

He's not very enthusiastic when it comes to his electric reels though, so I doubt you'll get much out of him. :)
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Clive McDonald on April 04, 2010, 11:29:31 am
I've explained it many times and put several pictures up. Screwfix are doing a good deal at the moment a site 18v drill and three batterys £50.These batteries also fit the makita drill.

Batteries on their own cost £64.

I recommend buying this drill fast. I have used one for 2yrs- and the batteries are now tired.

As regards rachets, aren't they 10 or 15 metre recoil only?
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Jeff Brimble on April 04, 2010, 11:35:48 am
Thought ratchets was another name for bed bugs  ;D

Anyone tried the Hozelock Fast Reels ? wondering it they need extra wrist leverage to turn the gearing compared to normal as I want to mount the reel on the ladders on the roof to save space inside my tardis berlingo multispace.
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Clive McDonald on April 04, 2010, 12:04:49 pm
hmmmph!
For the last time
800 litres , twinroof mounted electric reels,three stage ladder inside roof,two see thru cabinets, a grid that attaches tee bars squeegies etc for easy access drying and keeping clean, Three working pumps and varistreams, two tapped live feeds from tank, two tapped returns to tank.

And yes, plenty of room to spare and all in a scudo.Who cares if you take the mick.

I nearly forgot, it's not speedlined because it doesn't have to be.
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Nathanael Jones on April 04, 2010, 12:35:44 pm
Clive,.. have you ever found a decent self layering mechanism that'd suit our reels too?
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Clive McDonald on April 04, 2010, 12:43:11 pm
No, i use my hand and feed through a towel, mostly i have my back to the incoming reel and this jolts me when there is a kink, but mostly me and my oppo find it okay.

Neither of us would ever go back to winding in by hand. I can understand if your work is mainly commercial you may not need this but on domestic we find it saves a lot of manual work.

Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Nathanael Jones on April 04, 2010, 02:34:58 pm
I'm going to go electric reels soon,.. & your setup has given me some good idea's. I would love to incorporate a self layering mechanism & have the motor/drill running from the WFP battery though.
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Clive McDonald on April 04, 2010, 07:52:27 pm
You are pretty good at making things work and so am i. I don't know much about the practical side though.
The site drills at £50 seem a good investment to me. Get more because spare batteries are good. The leisure battery is only 12v, these are 18v.

Whichever motor you use the torque has to be right.These drills with the two speed setting work on the lower speed- they do not work on the high speed setting,

I tried an impact driver and that would not work at all.

What i am saying, this is a simple solution and it works extremely well.If you saw it in action you would forget about trying to improve on it.

Any self layering system would still get snagged by kinks, and tangles.The key is to lay the hose out in an orderly way.If i carry my hose back to the van in a jumble of loops i get into a mess just like anyone else.

By feeding the hose in through a towel and having the other hand on the trigger the control is very good.WW said i should do a u tube and perhaps i should. It's a bit like the early days when we were the first with hot systems, all that argueing, what's the point.I've used the reels in this way for two years now.

I expect the self layering could be done, but i prefer simpler solutions.

If you could find a simple and cheap way to do the clutch you would probably have a  good product.The criteria is that it should drive the reel, and freewheel when the power is off- that's all it has to do.So you need a male and a female bit that fit together, one on the drill and the other on the reel, and these to seperate when the reel wants to continue spinning without the drill.

Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Nathanael Jones on April 04, 2010, 08:25:58 pm
I have an old 24v drill that will work (Slowly) on the 12v wfp battery so I might try to give it a go over the summer. If It works for me then I'll invest in a decent drill/motor.
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Jeff Brimble on April 04, 2010, 09:26:12 pm
You are pretty good at making things work and so am i. I don't know much about the practical side though.
The site drills at £50 seem a good investment to me. Get more because spare batteries are good. The leisure battery is only 12v, these are 18v.

Whichever motor you use the torque has to be right.These drills with the two speed setting work on the lower speed- they do not work on the high speed setting,

I tried an impact driver and that would not work at all.

What i am saying, this is a simple solution and it works extremely well.If you saw it in action you would forget about trying to improve on it.

Any self layering system would still get snagged by kinks, and tangles.The key is to lay the hose out in an orderly way.If i carry my hose back to the van in a jumble of loops i get into a mess just like anyone else.

By feeding the hose in through a towel and having the other hand on the trigger the control is very good.WW said i should do a u tube and perhaps i should. It's a bit like the early days when we were the first with hot systems, all that argueing, what's the point.I've used the reels in this way for two years now.

I expect the self layering could be done, but i prefer simpler solutions.

If you could find a simple and cheap way to do the clutch you would probably have a  good product.The criteria is that it should drive the reel, and freewheel when the power is off- that's all it has to do.So you need a male and a female bit that fit together, one on the drill and the other on the reel, and these to seperate when the reel wants to continue spinning without the drill.


Good post>  ;)
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Nathanael Jones on April 04, 2010, 09:51:36 pm
I see the electric reel as something that will remove repetitive & sometimes awkward actions & reduce stress on my body,.. i've the same motivation for it as I had for using lighter poles & brushes.
At the moment my reel isn't even fixed in the van though,.. I'm on the lookout for some cheap roller fairleads & planning a decent fixed reel motorised rewind setup.
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Ste M on April 04, 2010, 11:05:48 pm
id love to leave my reel in the van, unfortunatly the connectors leak so i wont be doing that, yes they are supposedly the good ones as well from gardiners ::)
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: davids3511 on April 04, 2010, 11:14:27 pm
Slumpbuster,

Do you have a pic of your solution, please?  Apologies if you've already posted one, but if you have I couldn't find the post with a quick search.

I'm interested as I'm keen to get a cheap quick solution to this problem and it sounds like you have one.

V
Slumpy, I would appreciate some more details and pics too. I did look at an old post from you but the pics seem to be gone.
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Roy Harding on April 05, 2010, 05:41:21 pm
Would one of these be powerfull enough to pull in a hose?

http://www.db-starter-alternator.com/Items/sbs0004%20-----?&caSKU=sbs0004%20-----&caTitle=BRIGGS%20393499%20394943%20399169%20490420%20494198%20494990%20497401%20%20%20SBS0004

Roy
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Roy Harding on April 05, 2010, 05:45:14 pm
Or these

http://www.db-starter-alternator.com/Items/Item.aspx?SKU=lrw0001%20/%20ramsey&caSKU=lrw0001%20/%20ramsey&caTitle=NEW%2012V%20Ramsey%20Winch%20Motor%20Bi-Directional%20HD%20MBJ4407%20LRW0001%20RAMSEY

Roy
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Nathanael Jones on April 05, 2010, 09:38:01 pm
Any kind of starter motor would be well powerful enough. The second one is 4.5hp!
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: ♠Winp®oClean♠ on April 05, 2010, 10:08:15 pm
I have the thought of running either an electric or rachet style reel from a fitting on a ladder fitted from the roof rack-rack and onto the rear door...hope this is clear.

This hose could then be run through a roller block (not sure of actual name) thus allowing near 180deg running of the hose.

The end aim to limit the amount of times I need to open the van.  Poles/ladder on top...water tank and bits inside.

There is someone who uses electric reels on here but you'll need either a tardis or a DMC DeLorean as (apparently) he lives two years in the future of the rest of us! ;)

He's not very enthusiastic when it comes to his electric reels though, so I doubt you'll get much out of him. :)

What possible use is this to anyone? sorry but I did ask a specific question and you seem to have thought I asked for someone to write down a complete string of random nonesense. Sorry if I did not make myself clear. My apologies.

Hey Dave, it may be worth your while hitching a ride on slumpy's time machine. See if you can get him to take you back a few years & find that sense of humour you left behind! ;)
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Jeff Brimble on April 05, 2010, 10:09:41 pm
I find this is very fast, I used to have it Vertically on the trolley but it creates friction on the outside of the casing. This way it spins really easily. It has to be up there because as you can see the back of the car is full. :roll:
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc114/JeffBrimble/DSCF2132.jpg)
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Ste M on April 05, 2010, 10:19:25 pm
jeff have you ever seen the film 'jaws'? you know the bit were they say 'i think were going to need a bigger boat'? well when you were fitting your kit inot your van did the same thought of thing come into your mind about your van ;D ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Jeff Brimble on April 08, 2010, 08:41:38 pm
Here is the inside- (http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc114/JeffBrimble/DSCF2135.jpg)

Comment its crap, you need to really pull the hose hard to get it to unreel and its 5 seconds longer to reel in so its not a "fast" reel. Not sure if it would be better with standard hose, I will use it for watering the plants etc. Got it from Makro for £49
Will stick to my existing reel which I am having fun unrolling and reeling in, its fast.  8)
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Jeff Brimble on April 08, 2010, 08:44:46 pm
jeff have you ever seen the film 'jaws'? you know the bit were they say 'i think were going to need a bigger boat'? well when you were fitting your kit inot your van did the same thought of thing come into your mind about your van ;D ;D ;D ;D
Yes but at the time my wife had Cancer, if you or your family ever need to go broke get Cancer  :'(
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Nathanael Jones on June 09, 2010, 08:06:25 am
I haven't yet managed to get a self layering mechanism,.. but I've found the perfect 12V motor & gearbox with a very smooth clutch mechanism,... on an electric golf trolley!

I'll try & put it together over the weekend & will post some pics.
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: [GQC] Tim on June 09, 2010, 08:44:55 am
I haven't yet managed to get a self layering mechanism,.. but I've found the perfect 12V motor & gearbox with a very smooth clutch mechanism,... on an electric golf trolley!

I'll try & put it together over the weekend & will post some pics.

Excellent let us know how it goes. As for a fixed reel setup, I've been using this for a long time now and it's absolutely perfect :

http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=76893.0
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: [GQC] Tim on June 16, 2010, 11:52:05 pm
I haven't yet managed to get a self layering mechanism,.. but I've found the perfect 12V motor & gearbox with a very smooth clutch mechanism,... on an electric golf trolley!

I'll try & put it together over the weekend & will post some pics.

Any updates?
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: tomy jackson on June 17, 2010, 10:50:32 am
can you give me a link to the drill as thers 4 at £50 it will be apresheatied ,do you remove dill to pull real out
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Nathanael Jones on June 17, 2010, 02:07:22 pm
I haven't yet managed to get a self layering mechanism,.. but I've found the perfect 12V motor & gearbox with a very smooth clutch mechanism,... on an electric golf trolley!

I'll try & put it together over the weekend & will post some pics.

Any updates?

Sorry nothing yet,.. been mad busy so haven't done much yet.
Title: Re: Reels - Electric & Rachet
Post by: Lee GLS on October 15, 2010, 09:38:02 am
I haven't yet managed to get a self layering mechanism,.. but I've found the perfect 12V motor & gearbox with a very smooth clutch mechanism,... on an electric golf trolley!

I'll try & put it together over the weekend & will post some pics.


Did you ever get the golf trolley motor working? Would love to know if it's possible to make this setup work