Hallie Riley and Victoria Lower of IC-Fluid Power explain how Eckart E3 actuators are used in MarQuipt’s davits and cranes.
MarQuipt is a marine and yachting equipment manufacturer specializing in products that facilitate easy and safe boarding of persons and the handling of tenders. Its product line comprises stairs, ladders, gangways, davits, cranes, and other equipment.
“We support a wide range of customers from individual boat owners … to OEM boat builders,” said Lee Byrd, MarQuipt’s vice president.
Finding an optimal boarding solution for each boat and the persons using it requires addressing various details as well as determining the needs of the people involved. Some boats, for example, are not universally accessible or designed for easily getting people on and off the boat. Some individuals can easily step across the gap between the boat and dock, while others require more assistance and security to help get them across. Other times, there is a large height difference to accommodate as well as the gap. As such, MarQuipt approaches each case as a unique situation.
“When people come to us with their boarding needs, the first questions we ask concern who’s getting on and off, how much help do they need, and if there are any pets involved,” mentioned Byrd.
Some cases may involve the installation of an articulating staircase where handrails and no gaps between the dock and boat are imperative details. In other situations, a vertical ladder that can be easily stowed away or some alternate arrangement may be a better solution.
“We encounter many different boarding situations in accommodating people who require various degrees of assistance,” said Byrd.
Hydraulic rotary actuators safely power davits and cranes
In addition to boarding equipment, MarQuipt also manufactures a range of davits and cranes which are essential for safely lifting and maneuvering tender boats onto yachts and other vessels. Similar to the challenge of providing appropriate boarding equipment, lifting equipment must also be carefully specified to meet the needs of each vessel.
In some smaller davits, tenders are lifted with a boom and manually rotated with a tagline, while higher capacity davits and cranes are fully powered hydraulically. This involves a hydraulic boom and a hydraulic rotary actuator installed in the base of the machine. The boom and cable lift the tender, while the actuator rotates the boom and tender 180° or 360° to easily move the tender and bring it aboard.
While full hydraulic rotation has traditionally been a feature reserved for higher capacity davits and cranes, MarQuipt has found it beneficial to also offer powered rotation in smaller davits to provide improved safety and convenience. For example, some tenders are stowed in locations where safe handling becomes more challenging. A davit mounted on an upper aft deck can be dangerous to manually rotate, as the user must manually push and pull the tender to rotate it into position. It becomes more challenging when the upper deck lacks safety railings.
For these and other reasons, offering powered rotation provides for a safer alternative to manually rotating the davit and tender, even when the tender is relatively small and lightweight.
“It is much more secure to be able to push a button and have the davit rotate under power even if the tender only weighs 800 lb or 1,000 lb,” Byrd said.
Eckart E3 hydraulic rotary actuators save space
MarQuipt’s solution was to add Eckart’s hydraulic rotary actuators into the system due to their compact, helical spline design.
“They’re compact and self-contained, so we can more easily fit them inside of our equipment,” Byrd explained.
Eckart’s rotary actuators contain their own rotation stops, which means the device did not have to be specially engineered to fit MarQuipt’s equipment. They are also easily replaceable if needed.
“They’re easy to swap out if we’ve got a problem. We’ve designed our davits to make removal for repair or replacement easier than with some other actuators,” said Byrd.
Marquipt designed some of its davit models, such as the MarQ series and TenderLift 2, around the small size of the Eckart E3 hydraulic rotary actuator.
Over time, some customers have seen the advantage of upgrading their davits to fully powered operation. Previously, this required MarQuipt to provide various models that differed substantially both visually and in design and construction.
MarQuipt saw an opportunity to optimize their designs and eliminate unnecessary components by integrating the Eckart E3 hydraulic rotary actuators into their davits. The actuators fit into the same enclosure housing components in non-powered rotation versions of the same davit. As a result, MarQuipt was able to simplify the provision of powered rotation to smaller davits and lower the overall cost for the customer.
“Because we could fit the rotary actuator inside our existing housing, we could reduce some costs and make that option to power rotary things more attractive,” Byrd said.
Behind Eckart’s E3 hydraulic rotary actuator
The Eckart E3 is specially constructed for mobile applications and can provide 180° or 360° of rotation with up to 210 bar (3,045 psi) or more. Its four-point bearing is designed to handle side loads and multi-directional forces. This is particularly useful in applications subjected to high forces and continuous movement.
“Oftentimes, applications seem simple, but when you think about the application, such as ones experienced by davits and cranes in their natural environment, where saltwater environments are coupled with the motion of the boat, the forces acting on components can change suddenly. Eckart actuators excel in demanding environments due to their integrated four-point bearings and internal corrosion protection, amongst other things,” said Ben Hunger, president of IC-Fluid Power.
Like all Eckart actuators, the E3 uses the helical spline and gear principle for compactness. The unique design also ensures a steady and low-wiggle working platform, as the threads and ball bearings have minimal backlash, and no bi-directional seals are used.
Eckart E3 rotary actuators have been used across several MarQuipt series of davits, such as the TenderLift Classic, TenderLift 2, MarQ 8, MarQ 10, MarQ 15, MarQ 17 davits, and larger TenderLift cranes, providing lifting capacities from 800 lbs up to thousands of pounds.
To learn more about MarQuipt’s full line of davits, cranes, and other equipment, visit marquipt.com.
To learn more about the Eckart E3 hydraulic rotary actuators, visit icfluid.com/hydraulic-rotary-actuators-e3.
Filed Under: Components Oil Coolers, Cylinders & Actuators, Featured, Mobile Hydraulic Tips