My workshop is actually in the attic of my house. There’s a staircase that descends into my bedroom, which is actually somewhat problematic during winters since I can’t really heat the bedroom efficiently because of this. I always wanted to make some kind of insulated hatch but never got to it. Last winter I had enough of the cold, so I finally found myself some thick styrofoam panels, glued them together and cut them to fit the hole.
A job well done, but if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing. So I decided the hatch needed to be automated. 😉
I bought a dirt cheap secondhand garage door lift, which already had all the power and functionality I needed. So now I only needed to figure out a way to make these two components work together.
I ended up cnc’ing the parts to assemble a spool from a leftover piece of 18mm MDF. The piece that actually interfaces with the motor’s gearing I decided to make out of aluminium. I was pleasantly surprised to see that all my toolpaths and settings were spot-on on the first go. It had been a while since my last carve, so I was expecting more issues.
A bearing ensures smooth rotation of the spool, and honestly there isn’t really all that much more to it. Most of my grievances were with installing this thing in a hard-to-reach spot above the stairset and getting everything aligned. In the end, I added one extra pulley to guide the cable perfectly to the middle of the spool so it doesn’t rub against its sides.
To finish this post, here’s a video of it in action (filmed before the extra pulley). Enjoy. I know I do.
One thought on “Hatch + lift”