Selecting The Correct Venturo Crane

January 5, 2017|News & Headlines

Three Steps to Help Determine What Venturo Crane Best Fits a Given Situation:

Determine What Size of Crane is Needed based on Foot Pound Rating required.

Foot Pound Rating — based on Foot Pound Rating required. To find out what the foot pound rating should be —find out the weight of the max load that will be lifted & what would be the max distance that load will be moved away from the center line of the crane—Using those two numbers you can determine Foot Pound Rating by multiplying those numbers together — the resulting number would be the foot pound rating of the size of the crane needed.

Note: Venturo HT and ET cranes are numbered in Foot Pound Ratings—ie—ET12 is 12,000 foot pound crane / HT25 is a 25,000 foot pound crane / HT50 is 50,000 foot pound rated crane; etc.

Example 1: Max weight to be lifted is 5000 lbs. The crane has to take 5000 lbs. a distance of 10’ away from the center line of the crane. 5000 lbs. x 10 feet would be 50,000 which would mean a 50,000 foot pound rated crane is needed which would be a Venturo HT50.

Example 2: Max weight to be lifted is 1390 lbs. The crane has to take 1390 lbs. a distance of 8’ away from the center line of the crane. 1390 lbs. x 8 feet would mean a 11,120 is needed which would mean a 12,000 foot pound crane is needed, so an ET12 would work in this application.

Example 3: Max weight to be lifted is 2100 lbs. The crane has to take 2100 lbs. a distance of 11’ away from the center line of the crane. 2100 lbs. x 11 feet would mean a 23,100 foot pound rated crane is needed which would mean an ET25 or HT25 would fit this application.

Some HT & ET models have the same max lifting capacity ratings:

HT25 & ET25 — max lifting capacity of 5000 lbs. @ 5 feet from the center line of the crane.

HT30 & ET30 — max lifting capacity of 5000 lbs. @ 6 feet from the center line of the crane.

HT40 & ET36 — max lifting capacity of 6000 lbs. @ 6 feet from the center line of the crane.

What type of crane to use—a “fully hydraulic”— the Venturo HT family of cranes or an “electric-hydraulic” the Venturo ET family of cranes would be determined by the how often the crane is used and what the end user is picking up.

Determining What Type of Crane is Best

This is commonly referred to as the expected “duty cycle” of the crane. Duty cycle means how often any crane is used during a 24 hour period.

How often it would be used during a 1 hour time period?
What type of work is the crane doing? — although an end user might only be occasionally using their crane, which means an ET Series crane would work, sometimes the job would require that the crane winch be running longer than a couple of minutes continuously, which would require a fully hydraulic crane. Pulling underground water pumps would be the application that this situation will occur the most. Because the load is possibly being hauled up a long distance from below ground, a hydraulic winch, like those on the HT series cranes is a better fit for the job, even if the crane is only used occasionally.

HT / Fully-Hydraulic Cranes — (HT25 through HT66 models / 5000 lbs. to 11,000 lbs. max lifting capacities) are designed to be continuous-duty use or for long lifts, such as lifting a water pumps from underground up to the surface. Most HT cranes are ordered as “proportional control cranes”, which means the operator has the ability to vary the speed of any crane function as he is using it, which allows operator to “feather the movements” when needed, such a delicate movement placing a large water pump back in place or working on replacing a transmission on a piece of equipment in the field. Proportional control cranes also have booms that power-extend all the way out. Non-proportional and all ET cranes, (except the ET36) have power boom extension only part of the way out as well as single “ON-OFF” function switches.

ET / Electric-Hydraulic Cranes — (ET6 through ET36 models / 2000 lbs. to 6000 lbs. max lifting capacities) & the Electric Mast Cranes (1500 lbs. to 2000 lbs. max capacities) have electric winch motors to lift loads and are designed for “intermittent duty” or “occasional use” cranes. Each individual crane’s electric winch will have a different constant run time allowed, but most of them are between 1.5 – 3 minutes running continuously. Also, typically these winches are not designed to be used more than a total of 10-15 minutes of use during any given hour. Operator controlled crane functions on the ET and Mast Cranes are either in the “ON or OFF” position. ET and Mast Cranes have a variety of booms that are either partially powered out and then manual, or completely manual, except the ET36, which power booms out to 20’ its max boom length.

Determine if Their Truck is the Right Size and Type

Minimum truck GVWR ratings are listed on the back of the brochures for all Venturo cranes, on each individual crane spec sheet as well the listing just below for the HT & ET crane families.

(Note: smaller Mast Cranes don’t have a GVWR listing as they will fit on virtually any size truck).

For HT Series Cranes—A PTO or some other means to drive a hydraulic pump will be needed to drive the hydraulic systems on these types of cranes and outriggers. Several types of outriggers are available for HT type cranes—manual out & down, manual out & hydraulic down and on the larger models, hydraulic out & hydraulic down. See pricing sheet for details on other commonly needed items for these types of cranes.

ET / Electric-Hydraulic crane / ET models and all Mast Cranes — don’t need PTO as they are self-contained units and run off the 12 volt electrical system of the truck. Most outrigger systems for these occasional use cranes are manual, however there is an option for “manual out and hydraulic down”. See pricing sheet for a more detailed description as well as other commonly needed items for these types of cranes.

Venturo Heavy Duty Crane Bodies:

Typically recommended and used for Venturo Cranes that are 16,000 FT-LBS and larger size cranes, (typically ET16KX and bigger electric-hydraulic cranes and HT fully-hydraulic cranes.)

HT25 bodies are rated to handle up to 30,000 foot pound rated cranes.
HT40 bodies are rated to handle up to 40,000 foot pound rated cranes.
HT50 bodies are rated to handle up to 50,000 foot pound rated cranes.
HT66 bodies are rated to handle up to 66,000 foot pound rated cranes.
Venturo Crane Bodies come built to handle 60” CA / 84” CA and 120”CA truck lengths.
Venturo Crane Bodies are available in a variety of cabinet configurations with standard features such as diamond plate floor deck / dual automotive weather seal on doors / stainless steel hardware / continuous drip edge / 5000 lbs. pull-out rated D-rings in the bed / engineered ladder frame base to distribute stress to the entire frame of the truck / heavy duty crane boxes / factory installed outrigger tubes-front and back
Venturo Crane Bodies have a variety of options available, such as LED interior cabinet lights / roller drawers / master locking system / work bench bumpers / grip strut steps; etc.
Venturo Crane Bodies all have a 6-Year Rust-Through Warranty
Popular 11’ / 84” CA mechanics bodies in all sizes are usually in stock for immediate shipment in Cincinnati.

Types of End Users and Markets for Truck Mounted Service

Crane Applications

Municipalities – for a variety of uses, loading equipment on/off trucks; loading dead animals; loading tree stumps; sewer lids; steel street plates used during road construction; pulling and servicing sewage water pumps; as a mechanics service truck for working on city or county owned equipment — many smaller communities have private contract companies that do all of these things. ET and Mast cranes are very popular in many of these applications, except water pumps pulling in which HT cranes are best.

Rental Equipment Companies – Rental Truck Companies – any Heavy Equipment company, such as CAT dealers; John Deere dealers, etc.. That have equipment they are responsible to service in the field. HT cranes with proportional controls are very popular in this industry.

Propane-Energy Service Companies – would typically need a crane to set propane or oil tanks. HT cranes, especially the HT40 with proportional controls is very popular in this industry.

Well Drilling Companies – for either water wells or fracking related companies. Depending on companies these will use a wide variety of sizes to pick up well casings and pipe lines.

Grave Stone / Monument Companies – very common to use an ET crane, to set head stones, crane is often facing backwards on flatbed truck, mounted in the center.

Building Materials Delivery and Construction Installation Companies – very common to all types of cranes to load granite counter tops / roofing materials, 55 gallon drums of chemicals or large bins of products to job sites. A variety of cranes used to load equipment on and off trucks, such as concrete finishing machines and land scape vibrating plate machines which often way 200-300 lbs.

Fleet Service Companies / Road Contractors etc. – almost all have mechanics service trucks for the fleets.

Factories / Recreational & Induatrial Boat Docks / River Companies – factories and industrial places will often have use for mostly ET or Mast Cranes. Anything involved with water will use both ET & HT cranes to put things like portable docks or smaller boats in and out of the water.

Crane Capacity Definitions

Crane capacity is typically stated in one of two ways:

Foot*Pounds / Overturning Moment – typically used when describing Pedestal cranes. The Foot*Pound rating is independent of the Maximum Lifting Capacity of the winch itself.

For example: the ET12KX is rated for 12,000 ft*lbs. The Maximum Lifting Capacity of the winch is 3,500 lbs (using snatch block to provide 2 part line).

– or –

Maximum Lifting Capacity – typically used when describing Mast cranes

For example, the CT2004FB is rated for 2,000 lbs. It is able to handle 2,000 lbs a maximum of 3 feet from the center of rotation, making it a 6,000 ft*lb crane.

How to determine Foot*Pounds (Overturning Moment)

Determine the WEIGHT of the load to be picked up.
Determine the DISTANCE from the Center of Crane Rotation to the spot where the load is to be picked up.
FOOT*POUNDS = DISTANCE x WEIGHT

Example #1:

2000 lb WEIGHT to be picked up at 10 feet = 20,000 ft*lbs
Venturo crane to be used = ET25KX or HT25KX

Example #2:

1000 lb WEIGHT to be picked up at 20 feet = 20,000 ft*lbs
Venturo crane to be used = ET25KX or HT25KX

Note that in both examples, the required Foot*Pounds was the same. It is important to determine the greatest Foot*Pounds requirement (“worst case scenario”) when selecting your crane capacity.

Articulating Crane Sizing