Building a Customized Clean Room System: How to Select the Right Components for a Critical Lifting Application

Welcome to the Hoist Guy’s Blog! Where our resident Hoist Guy, Andrew T. Litecky, shares his experience in the overhead material handling industry to discuss the different components in a recent pharmaceutical clean room lifting application.

A Specialty Lifting System for a Clean Room Application

A clean environment already requires specialized lifting equipment, however the additional requirements of our customer’s request for quote immediately started as a challenge that would tax all our technical knowledge. The customer’s cleanroom had an overall ceiling height of 120” and production equipment that needed periodic maintenance at no less than 90” above the finished floor, creating a challenge in getting the hoist hook high enough to perform the lift. The customer needed a two-ton capacity hoist on a motor driven trolley and requested that the controls be mounted from the floor for easy servicing. Finally, the entire lifting system needed to be moved around the cleanroom, to make picks from different areas.

Meeting the Crane Specs with Blue Chip Components and Special Features

We selected three main components for this pharmaceutical cleanroom application:

1. A stainless steel gantry crane by David Round to address the need for a movable system
2. Variable Frequency Drive controls by Power Electronics International for pinpoint movement and placement of the hoist and trolley motions
3. Ultra close headroom underhung wire rope hoist by Electrolift for superior headroom and durability.

In this short video, we’ll show you the components we chose for the clean room crane and walk you through how they each work to accomplish our pharmaceutical clients’ needs.

Clean Room Gantry Crane

The David Round gantry crane for the wipe down cleanroom was constructed of 304 stainless steel with a #3 finish. The top of the gantry needed to miss the cleanroom ceiling by no less than 3”, and the gantry span was built at 15 feet. The model W10X494 Gantry Crane beam was customized with a heavier flange measured to 4” wide. Stainless steel Duct-O-Wire festooned electrification was connected to the underside of the gantry top flange, with flat head stainless steel fasteners.

VFD Hoist & Trolley Controls

The Power Electronics factory wired control panel included variable frequency drives for the hoist and trolley, transformer control, motor thermal overload protection, brake relays for hoist and trolley brakes, a six button pendant station on a 10’ control wire, a 20’ type “SO” power cord with plug, to accept the customer’s wall mounted receptacles around the room.

Clean Room Wire Rope Hoist

The Electrolift wire rope hoist with a motor driven trolley was customized as follows:

• Stainless steel trolleys
• FDA approved white epoxy paint for the hoist and trolley
• Stainless steel wire rope drum with left and right hand grooving for true vertical lift
• Stainless steel lower block and hook
• Stainless Steel catch pans mounted under the hoist motor and gearcase as well as the trolley motor and gearcase
• Gits diaphragm breathers installed in place of the gear case vent plugs to contain the release of oil particulates in the cleanroom
• Stainless steel covers were fitted over the overload device and the trolley geared wheels to aid in the wipe down process
• All electrical wires were terminated in stainless steel NEMA 4X hoist mounted junction box

The Engineered Pharmaceutical Clean Room Lifting System

The stack up dimensions of all components of the clean room lifting system moving downward from the ceiling are as follows:

• 120” ceiling
• 3” OSHA required Clearance
• 10” Gantry Beam height
• 16” Hoist headroom

Total: 91” over the finished floor. Mission Accomplished.

Shupper-Brickle brought all components into our crane shop in Millstone Township, New Jersey, where everything was assembled, wired, functionally tested and load tested to 125%. The crane and hoist system was then disassembled and shipped to the job site, for use in the pharmaceutical cleanroom.

Cleanroom Crane & Hoist Systems from Shupper-Brickle

Every cleanroom has specific requirements and no matter what yours are, Shupper-Brickle Equipment can supply you with a hoist or crane that will operate efficiently and safely while maintaining the required environment. We offer both factory-standard equipment as well as custom-engineered systems with extensive experience providing equipment for clean environments. Contact Shupper-Brickle Equipment for an overhead lifting system for your pharmaceutical clean room application.