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Holy hell....boat lift motor help....


goodmatt78

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OK....got my lift in the water (manual wheel SS) and I was in a flop sweat by the time I got my boat up.  I need a motor ASAP.

I am looking at ExtremeMax and Lifttech.  I already have 110V AC run and a canopy.

I am looking at the FOB vs pendant options.   Any thoughts vs preference?   I am not sure the fobs are worth the extra $180 and a hanging pendant could be a nice guide/stop point.

Thanks.

 

 

 

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We have a lifttech.  The motor is great, the FOB sucks.  To raise or lower the boat you need to hold the button down continually.  I understand this is necessary as there are no end of travel limits integrated into the system.  My problem with it is that the reception between the FOB and the Lifttech is so poor that it cuts out continually.  You then have to wait a few seconds for the control system to catch up and then press the button again.  With this happening every 10 -15 seconds I have just given up and use the key switch on the control panel.  The motor works great but I would not spend the money on the FOB again.

 

 

Edited by SkiZilla
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I just talked with the owner of lifttech and he was awesome and gave me a fantastic deal.   I went with the key fob only because of no up charge.  I only plan to use the FOB to stabilize the boat....then exit and use the switch as I am near the limit of my lift and need to make sure we are out when lifting anyways.

Also, I couldn't get the canopy light with the pendant.  I wanted that also to turn on and off from the water.....or while in the engine compartment....etc.

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I tied a big ars LEG light bar into the canopy light on our lift.  Pointed it down towards the engine compartment and toggle it on and off with the Lifttech remote.  It's like daylight in there when you turn it on and the light reflects off the water nicely.....with over a 100 feet of dock you can read on shore from the light output.  Its a bit of overkill but great.  Only downside is the Lifttech controller times out on the light and you have to fumble around in the dark for the remote every five minutes or so.

 

 

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gents:

if you have a motor from a year or so ago that cuts out after 15 sec or so of lifting, then you have to wait for a sec or two before starting again:  contact LT and get a replacement control board to eliminate this issue. the wireless unit/control board had a "battery saver issue" that didnt get eliminated from the programming. so it would cut the signal after so long to prevent draining the fob batteries. but obviously given our application thats not necessary however that feature somehow slipped through the cracks for not getting eliminated on some production units. 

the Fobs should work roughly 150-200ft or so line of sight which is plenty. if you have any issues you can also get an updated key fob. the fobs ARE waterproof generally speaking i've dropped some in the water and since i had spares got them a week or two later when i wanted to take a dip. no problem, however if you replace batteries and DONT screw it tight and water does get in then there is a water-sensor KILL inside the fob that will kill the fob so that it does NOT accidently go crazy and lift your boat on its own... 

Motors: we carry the brand new LT DC wireless motor WITH auto stop, so you can program upper and lower limits, Now AC or DC options for this. if interested please PM me. DC option is brand new. 

wireless light going off: it goes off after 10mins or so to protect folks from leaving it on and killing their batteries. you WANT this.. although i agree perhaps it should be longer but i'm sure ppl would complain too short or too long depending on use. not much to do about this frankly besides press it again. 

i have two style lights for the canopy: a rigid bar style and a 5ft flexible style. flexible style works best for shorestation lifts with curved ribs and frankly ALL brand lifts. you can use one or two light strips. i use two one near back of boat and one near front, this way i can leave my tower bimini up and it doesn't block the light since the lights are behind and in front of it. also FYI, im in indiana, and i had the white on my lift and it draws way to many bugs at night, so i came up with the idea to make orange/amber color. its obviously not as bright as the white LEDs but plenty bright enough to see what your doing and personally i could never go back to white, with white it was like TURN OFF THE LIGHT!!! with orange not bad at all doesnt draw many bugs. anyhow i recommend the flexible strips as they work with any lift. the rigid bars are nice and some lit companies such as Max use this one on their center front-to-back beam. only issue is to mount it "after market" you need to dissassemble the frame to add more bolts in the t-slots so the flexible is much easier to add if you didnt order your lift with it. ..flexible strip light kits take about 5-mins to install.

IF you have a shore station EDS unit and you are running at 24v then the wireless LIGHT output is also 24v and you will need to use two of the light strips and use our series connector to connect two 12v light strips into series (not parallel) thus making a 24v light. 

if you have a DC-Manual motor (ie a motor without wireless key fob and light output) then you need the wireless canopy light: this kit has a separate key fob that controls a canopy light only, one advantage of this is that you get on/off and DIMMING . the dimming function will remember the previous brightness when you turn on/off each time. so even if you do NOT have a wireless boat lift motor you can still add a wireless canopy light. if you have a 24v setup then you still connect this system to ONLY one of those batteries (12v)

having a light when your coming in after a cruise is awesome, click the fob 100-200ft out and you can see easily when your pulling into the lift, unloading and cleaning up...total awesomeness. 

there is also a NEW LT wireless DC motor which has AUTO stop feature so you can program upper/lower limits. Now in both AC and DC models, so please PM me if you need hooked up. the neat thing is that is COUNTS the actual revolutions its NOT time based like some of the other mfgs tried years back. problem with timing is that it does not work well due to weight and lifting speed changing based on battery voltage or extra weight in the boat slowing down etc.. these are revolution based so they work great if you happen to have "kiddos" operating your lift you wont break it by lifting too far, or unwinding the cable by lowerin too far and potentially winding it up backwards ....BUT if you in fact do that, these motors have a neat feature to max out at much lower amps in the reverse mode as to protect you from lifting /winding backwards....so the motor will cut out if lifting in wrong direction given you have a decent load on it. 

Now on to 12v vs 24v or lifting: if you have a 5-8k lbs boat lift then you def want to go 24v. its much much faster and in fact much more efficient. the motors are all coiled for 12v however running them at 24v is actually over-driving them so they run MORE than 2X as fast. since we obviously dont run them 24hrs a day you dont need to worry about burning up the motor over-driving it. the motors are only used a few mins at at time...running at 24v you also gain about 10-20% eff depending on your brand of lift/setup/weight. once you see 24v you will NEVER GO BACK. the industry majority is NOW 24v where 3yrs ago it was still majority for 12v. 

anyhow if any of you have questions on the best setup for your lift and options just give me a call or PM me. 

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5 minutes ago, The Hulk said:

gents:

if you have a motor from a year or so ago that cuts out after 15 sec or so of lifting, then you have to wait for a sec or two before starting again:  contact LT and get a replacement control board to eliminate this issue. the wireless unit/control board had a "battery saver issue" that didnt get eliminated from the programming. so it would cut the signal after so long to prevent draining the fob batteries. but obviously given our application thats not necessary however that feature somehow slipped through the cracks for not getting eliminated on some production units. 

the Fobs should work roughly 150-200ft or so line of sight which is plenty. if you have any issues you can also get an updated key fob. the fobs ARE waterproof generally speaking i've dropped some in the water and since i had spares got them a week or two later when i wanted to take a dip. no problem, however if you replace batteries and DONT screw it tight and water does get in then there is a water-sensor KILL inside the fob that will kill the fob so that it does NOT accidently go crazy and lift your boat on its own... 

Motors: we carry the brand new LT DC wireless motor WITH auto stop, so you can program upper and lower limits, Now AC or DC options for this. if interested please PM me. DC option is brand new. 

wireless light going off: it goes off after 10mins or so to protect folks from leaving it on and killing their batteries. you WANT this.. although i agree perhaps it should be longer but i'm sure ppl would complain too short or too long depending on use. not much to do about this frankly besides press it again. 

i have two style lights for the canopy: a rigid bar style and a 5ft flexible style. flexible style works best for shorestation lifts with curved ribs and frankly ALL brand lifts. you can use one or two light strips. i use two one near back of boat and one near front, this way i can leave my tower bimini up and it doesn't block the light since the lights are behind and in front of it. also FYI, im in indiana, and i had the white on my lift and it draws way to many bugs at night, so i came up with the idea to make orange/amber color. its obviously not as bright as the white LEDs but plenty bright enough to see what your doing and personally i could never go back to white, with white it was like TURN OFF THE LIGHT!!! with orange not bad at all doesnt draw many bugs. anyhow i recommend the flexible strips as they work with any lift. the rigid bars are nice and some lit companies such as Max use this one on their center front-to-back beam. only issue is to mount it "after market" you need to dissassemble the frame to add more bolts in the t-slots so the flexible is much easier to add if you didnt order your lift with it. ..flexible strip light kits take about 5-mins to install.

IF you have a shore station EDS unit and you are running at 24v then the wireless LIGHT output is also 24v and you will need to use two of the light strips and use our series connector to connect two 12v light strips into series (not parallel) thus making a 24v light. 

if you have a DC-Manual motor (ie a motor without wireless key fob and light output) then you need the wireless canopy light: this kit has a separate key fob that controls a canopy light only, one advantage of this is that you get on/off and DIMMING . the dimming function will remember the previous brightness when you turn on/off each time. so even if you do NOT have a wireless boat lift motor you can still add a wireless canopy light. if you have a 24v setup then you still connect this system to ONLY one of those batteries (12v)

having a light when your coming in after a cruise is awesome, click the fob 100-200ft out and you can see easily when your pulling into the lift, unloading and cleaning up...total awesomeness. 

there is also a NEW LT wireless DC motor which has AUTO stop feature so you can program upper/lower limits. Now in both AC and DC models, so please PM me if you need hooked up. the neat thing is that is COUNTS the actual revolutions its NOT time based like some of the other mfgs tried years back. problem with timing is that it does not work well due to weight and lifting speed changing based on battery voltage or extra weight in the boat slowing down etc.. these are revolution based so they work great if you happen to have "kiddos" operating your lift you wont break it by lifting too far, or unwinding the cable by lowerin too far and potentially winding it up backwards ....BUT if you in fact do that, these motors have a neat feature to max out at much lower amps in the reverse mode as to protect you from lifting /winding backwards....so the motor will cut out if lifting in wrong direction given you have a decent load on it. 

Now on to 12v vs 24v or lifting: if you have a 5-8k lbs boat lift then you def want to go 24v. its much much faster and in fact much more efficient. the motors are all coiled for 12v however running them at 24v is actually over-driving them so they run MORE than 2X as fast. since we obviously dont run them 24hrs a day you dont need to worry about burning up the motor over-driving it. the motors are only used a few mins at at time...running at 24v you also gain about 10-20% eff depending on your brand of lift/setup/weight. once you see 24v you will NEVER GO BACK. the industry majority is NOW 24v where 3yrs ago it was still majority for 12v. 

anyhow if any of you have questions on the best setup for your lift and options just give me a call or PM me. 

I dislike this post. It is far to informative. 

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5 hours ago, mackie12 said:

Nothing like cranking that wheel after a few sets in the morning......

haha your crazy!

nothing like watching the wife hit a key fob! ha

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22 hours ago, goodmatt78 said:

OK....got my lift in the water (manual wheel SS) and I was in a flop sweat by the time I got my boat up.  I need a motor ASAP.

This cracks me up.   I had a similar experience about 10 years after buying my first Malibu.  I had a motor within a week.  I could have made a fortune selling motors to my friends, after they saw mine.

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