Tubular Motor for lights?

[mayyammay]

Hi -

Is anyone using a tubular motors to raise and lower your lights? Would you mind sharing the products you used and any pitfalls you encountered?

There are a few products (AuxxLift and GarageSmart) made for the garage, but it seems like this is something that could be made easily.

I found these heavy duty tubular motors:
https://www.metechs.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=19&products_id=416539
But I'm not sure how to attach cables to the motor. Any suggestions would be most welcome!

 

[air_run]

This is the route I am looking to go for my lighting as well. On the "Custom Width Large Heavy Duty Aluminum Tube and Motor Kit 3017" you can order in the width you want. The 2.5" aluminum tube has slots for sliding in tracks for holding the shades, awning or whatever. Kinda like the T-nuts slide in for aluminum 80/20 extrusion. I'm simply going to drill a small hole in the inner part of that track and just run the ATI hanging kit wire through there just as I was running through the ATI hanging kit ceiling mount. If this makes sense?

I will set the lowest point just barely above the aquarium (maybe 2 or 3 inches or so) so there is no slack and if the motor were to fail the lowest the light would fall or hang is a few inches above the aquarium. Here is a link of the photo of the tube.

https://www.metechs.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=18&products_id=416635

 

[mayyammay]

This is great, thank you. I missed this kit when I browsing the METech site.

I'm thinking I'll need to double up on motors because I am hanging 8 lights using a t-slot frame. It will end up weighing just under 200lbs, which is close to the max weight limit of the motor.

 

[air_run]

Yes, and there is a mobile app (SmartHub) as well so you can control/sync the two motors as one if you wanted.