Weightless Control of Air Hoist using Compressed Air

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Air balance hoists are widely used in handling of heavy materials in industry. Currently used air balance hoists adopt manual switches for vertical motion, thus the operator has a difficulty in operating of the switches and handling of material simultaneously. To overcome this difficulty, this study develops a weightless air-balance-hoist system using compressed air. This system memorizes the weight of material in terms of pneumatic pressure with a pneumatic circuit. Such memory of the material weight is used for achieving weightless handling of materials. Through a series of experiments, handling forces and the response of the system for various material weights are analyzed. The results show that the developed system can be used for weightless handling o( heavy materials.