Silverline 500W Electric Hoist 250kg 500W UK (264782)

I purchased this winch to fit in the apex of my garage roof trusses and dangle through the loft access in order to left heavy items onto my trailer, or lift my trailer on end for storage or, say lift my generator onto a work bench. etc...My comments are these..The mains lead is stupid short and the plug is some convoluted mess to convert whatever far east standard connector is fitted to the cable, to a UK 13 A plug.I will cut this off and wire it into a wall box then to a local 13A socket.Why the cable is this short is anyone's guess. I would expect at least 1m, 2m at most.The cable LOOKS like super tough supremo quality but it isn't..Clip it to the wall and leave it...The control box had a non latching rocker switch for UP and DOWN.The round emergency stop button is pointless because if you let go of the thing, it all stops.I suspect this is a generally available control handle with a pre fitted stop button.For me, I will cut this monstrosity off and replace it with a radio control or fit a relay box so I can route a thinner cable to a more convenient workshop position.Even this cable is stupid short though asked what length I should prefer, I cannot give an answer as we each have a different idea of how we will use the winch ..., hence the radio.adaptation.The steel wire attached to the control cable is over engineering in my view.Were I to retain the control handle, I would remove the wire AND the control arm that prevents over winding. There;s Health ans safety, and complication for complications sake.The routing of the steel winching wire to activate this safety device is not clear and with the winch beyond easy reach in the rafters, I need a mechanical snarl up at height like a hole in the head.On the plus side, mechanically, the winch looks and sounds the part.If there is a grease nipple for the gearbox, I have yet to find it.The additional pulley block that doubles up the winch capacity is a hand tools effort to spilt and reassemble so you can wrap the winch wire into it, so, select 125KG or 250kg and live with it.Addition of the 250kg pulley also prevents the red disk activating the auto stop arm as far as I can determine. I may be wrong but these devices need to work without human supervision or they are worthless.As this emergency stop bracket is plastic, I may remove itI am aware that the steel winch cable, if tension is removed, will unwind on the reel so I would advice keeping some tension on the wire when not in use.Despite all of the above, for the price, for domestic home use, it is ideal in my opinion.Some modification is on the cards in my application.Additional lubrication of the additional pulley and a light spray oil on the winch cable is required.I would recommend.

Some observations to add to other reviews:* Cable thickness is 3mm* If you want to use the supplied pulley block to obtain 2:1 this is hooked to the back of the body when looked at with the controls on the left.* A strain wire is clipped to the operating switch to prevent it being over-stretched. This is prudent but awkward when it comes to coiling. It can be removed at your own risk etc.* As well as the auto-shutoff which is operated by the red disc in the picture pushing against the black arm, there is an over-spooling shutoff. That is the little silver arm you can see above the black arm. The idea is that if the wire spools too much in one place it will push the arm away and switch off the motor. You can adjust the sensitivity of this arm, but after trials I found it easier to disconnect it.* For my own application, as beam mounting was impractical, I mounted this using two bits of roofing batten supported immediately either side by strong metal brackets and this is working fine.* The mains cable is short as others have said - well under a metre. It is not particularly easy (though possible) to rewire into the hoist itself so you may well prefer to use an extension lead and replace the converter which others have said is unreliable. I did that though I have to say the converter looked decent enough.My own application for this is a little non-standard. I need to get loaded wheelie bins up 16 steps. I mounted the hoist at the top of the flight just below a ceiling. I took the supplied pulley block and loose-bolted it through two D plates fixed to the wall below (so it swings). The cable passes through this, so it comes straight down from the hoist, round the pulley and can then be attached to the load at any reasonable angle. This all works very well and has made the job a lot easier and safer, though the auto-shutoff can't work (I think I can work out a separate trigger for that). The operation requires two people - one to steady the bins and one to operate the control. It does not seem possible to obtain wireless remote control units for these kind of hoists (more common with 12v winches). But then I had a wheeze...REMOTE CONTROLI was keen to have remote control for my application but worried it might damage the electronics. Then I realised that the cutoff switches simply cut the power, so why not do the same? I bought a wireless remote socket controller and am using that. I have to lock down the switch in the up or down position and did that by drilling a hole in each side of the switch shield and then I push a small screwdriver through to lock the switch. This is not recommended of course and will invalidate the warranty. But it means I can go to the bottom of my flight of steps with my remote controller and guide my load up single handed, switching on and off as needed. Perfect for me!

Needed one fast after previous one failed express delivery next day before lunch which enable the job to continue .Scaffolding bracket slightly too small to fit UK tube needed a bit of modification and the speed is slower than previous model . Cable bunches up sometime but not a issue if your use to it jumping . The power plug has an adaptor for UK plug which works . Think it's 230v so it will be running over with UK 240v if it fluctuates . The power lead is a 1 ft long needs to be longer . Ok for the money

I purchased this hoist as I was finding lifting a band saw onto a table was hard work; with the risk of straining my back. The first hoist went missing. The carrier claimed to have have delivered it. But it was not found. When the supplier was notified a replacement was immediately sent out and arrived quickly. I have bolted the hoist between 2 rafters in my garage using a scaffold pole. The pole is a tight fit for the brackets supplied with the hoist. I only lift items weighing around 30 - 40 KG so it does not put much load on the rafters. The hooks are too small to safely fit 1 ton strops on and I will have to get a D shackle to overcome this. Otherwise a nice bit of kit which is fairly quiet in use. The mains plug is an adapter fitted onto a european type plug, there is a very short - 2ft mains lead so an extention lead has to be used. However the control lead is very long.