Hinges for hood to help raise it.

[lacrosseboss18]

I was wondering if there are any hinges to help raise my hood. The front of my hood raised and flips up to allow access to the tank.
The front 1/4 +/- of the hood flips up and is heavy. I can see this getting old doing it daily.
Would something like a hydrolic hinge help? And if so would I worry about the moisture or salt?
Thanks

 

[JoshH]

There are many cabinet hinges available that will work for you. Most of them are stainless steel which will help with the salt but regardless nothing lasts forever. Probably just replace them every couple years as they aren't overly expensive. gas cylinder's will work but I find they can get stiff rather quickly

 

[mcarroll]

Piano hinge, if that's what you mean. If there's a lot of salt spray it won't work, but brass will resist very minor corrosion. (If there's a lot of salt spray, that could be a problem of its own and is something that could probably be fixed.)

Are you looking for a hinge, or a lift-assist?

You can use a powered actuator to lift the whole hood off the tank or just lift up the front part.

Even a stick can hold the front up while you work. I used a customized 2" PVC pipe of the correct length as a prop on one tank.....cut grooves into the ends of the pipe to fit the rim of the tank and the edge of the door I was holding up.

 

[lacrosseboss18]

I'm looking for for something to help take a little weight off from when I'm lifting the front of the hood for feeding the fish.

 

[JoshH]

Things like this were kind of where I was going

 

[mcarroll]

I'm looking for for something to help take a little weight off from when I'm lifting the front of the hood for feeding the fish.

Using a simple prop one or two feet long might work.

An actuator is waaaay cooler: ;)


Those spring loaded hinges are very nice as long as they are rust-free. Consider some you can maybe keep oiled, or at least have replacements on-hand. They're worse than nothing when they stop working correctly.

 

[lacrosseboss18]

Hey josh. Yeah that's what I was thinking.
Mcarroll. That is AWESOME!!! How's it stand up to the water and opening and closing multiple times a day

 

[mcarroll]

Folks have been using them for quite a while, so you should be able to find some old examples out there and see how they've held up.

Of course nothing metallic lasts forever in a salty environment.

But you can get em waterproof. And if you're creative, it's not too hard to keep them isolated from the salty environment...in a box, in another room, whatever....let a string, rope or some chain do the connection from the actuator through the salty environment to the hood, and use a pulley or two as needed. Just for example.

@revhtree was thinking about a powered lift like this for his build, but I'm not sure what he picked.

Definitely worth googling around and searching old threads on R2R, etc, to see how it's been done before.