CONTROLS
A Titan belly-box unit from IMET.
maze-like plethora of wiring between them, which is undesirable, especially in a moving
overhead crane where distances between components varies and is undesirable. Happily, there is a way round this. Manufacturers’ catalogues contain frequent reference to CANBUS; and this is the second of our near-universal digital technologies. It is a method of passing multiple channels of data along a single two-wire cable. Each component needs to be connected to only one cable. The gains in simplicity, reliability and costs are therefore considerable. The CAN part of the name stands for Controller Area Network, which is a reasonably understandable phrase for what it does. (The ‘bus’ is electrical engineer-speak; very crudely, it means a wiring system.)
CANBUS offers a way of transmitting a large and varied amount of data and communication over a small number of cables. They do, however, need processing electronics to translate this communication into machinery outputs. CANBus uses two wires and pulses, the voltage difference across the wires is measured and processed as data; this data is further processed and converted to outputs. So, given variable frequency drives and CANBUS, what is available in the way of control systems? We have spoken of pendants; the next obvious step is wireless remote control. The hand units of these often resemble those of pendants: buttons or joysticks, more or fewer of them depending on how many functions are to be controlled, in a toughened casing that is held in the hand or supported at waist-level by a neckband that has the advantage of leaving both hands free but has the disadvantage of being universally labelled with the unglamorous name of ‘belly-box’. Buyers of such systems are spoiled for choice. Among manufacturers, Columbus Mckinnon have their the ZLTX Radio Remote Controls, introduced last summer. HBC-Radiomatic, Hetronic, Autec and IMET are all major players, as is the company formerly known as IKUSI, which is now Danfoss. Operating frequencies for crane radio control vary worldwide. In the UK, crane controls typically operate in the 433MHz UHF band; in the US, 915MHz is common; but 2.4GHz is the frequency for global compatibility. Within those bands, many systems use automatic frequency hopping technology to avoid interference and to allow multiple, simultaneous crane operations. Street Crane’s Sabre system is one that uses 2.4GHz frequency, which allows the operator to deploy the same solution worldwide and enables
Street Crane’s Sabre system uses 2.4GHz for universal compatibility.
24 | March 2026 |
www.hoistmagazine.com
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