SECTOR REPORT Ӏ MINI CRANES
was a wonderful innovation… but is no longer new. A recent development of it has been the pop-up crane. It does what it says on the tin: it is a spider crane on tracks; when it has reached its workplace the legs extend, as before; then, and here’s the evolution, a kingpost rises from the chassis (there used to not be kingposts), the boom then unfolds from the kingpost, and everything follows from there. This July UK-headquartered lifting solutions provider GGR Group introduced the new UNIC UM325 pop-up. GGR is the UK agent for UNIC and has long been a pioneer of the mini crane. The new machine is powered
by a lithium battery pack which can charge while in operation. Emissions-free operation for indoor working is, of course, one of the well-known advantages of the mini crane. The UM235 has a 2.9 to 10.0 metre main boom and, a new feature, a fully hydraulic telescoping luffing jib/searcher hook attachment. The new luffing jib has a maximum capacity of 1000kg, extends from 2.0 to 5.7 metres, and has a luffing range from -10° to 80° offset. The enhancements enable the UM325 to achieve lifting heights of up to 17.8 metres and a maximum working radius of 16 metres. Dan Ezzatvar, marketing and special products director at GGR, explains its genesis: “We introduced the prototype at Bauma in 2022, just before the pandemic. Maeda launched its equivalent soon after. It is significant that both of those are Japanese makers; they introduced the type in response the success of European-manufactured cranes. The Japanese had been very much the pioneers of the mini crane, and they were well-built and simple to operate. European manufacturers, such as Jekko and Hoeflon, then
produced their own mini cranes that were definitely not like-for-like copies. The European cranes were very intricately designed, and very versatile. They had, for example, integrated fly jibs as standard. For that reason you can do a lot with those machines; and integrated fly jibs is something that the UNIC and Maeda machines did not have. “As you can imagine, feedback
from our dealer network highlighted this difference and so there was a genuine business case for the Japanese to bring out a more versatile crane. “As a result, since the Bauma 2022 launch, we have been
The T-Crane
1060 – half crane, half handler
focussing on the production models of the pop-up crane; we have also been focussing on the introduction of hydraulic fly jibs. Specifically, we have a new fly jib for the UNIC 295 machine, and we also have one for our pedestrian- operated 546.”
The UNIC URW 295-3 spider crane has a lifting capacity of 2.9 tonnes (at 1.4 metres) yet a width of just 0.6 metres – so it can fit through a standard door frame. It has a maximum lifting height of 8.8 metres, which increases to 9.8 metres with the new fly jib, and 10.47 metres with the fixed hook. It is petrol-powered,
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