Electrical Association

Exciting Invention to be Demonstrated at the Summer Conference

MEA member Pat Vlaminck (Vlaminck Electric, Porter MN) tells the story...

“We spent years loading 1000-pound spools of wire on our trailer by pushing them up the ramps and loading them onto a wire rack. I decided there had to be a better way. My biggest concern was for the safety of our employees. If one of these large wire spools were to get away or if someone were to slip and have a spool of wire roll over them it could cause a severe injury.

We decided that we could have a wire spool rack built that would incorporate a hydraulic pump and cylinders to load wire spools from the side of our trailer instead of from the back. Our design has two reel racks to accommodate two rolls of wire. As the 2008 Code requires four wires to ag buildings, this allows us to carry a roll of ground wire in addition to the roll of underground triplex.

I contacted SMI & Hydraulics, a manufacturing business in Porter, to discuss my idea. Their engineering department assured me they could build just what I wanted. These pictures show the finished product. The lift has its own 12-volt hydraulic pump and a battery that recharges off of the trucks electrical system.

One person can load and unload a roll of 250 URD by themselves in approximately one-third the time that it took two people to load before. We can have two rolls of wire on the rack instead of tying the second roll on the back of the trailer behind the trencher. This rack allows us to change rolls of wire without unloading the trailer.

One of our employees stated that it was fortunate to work for an employer who cares about their safety and is willing to help insure safety.

I am so excited about how well this works that I have applied for a patent on it and plan to market it. It works even better than I had expected. I plan to take the trailer with the rack on it along to the MEA Summer Conference at Riverwood Inn June 10-14.”

Look for it at the Product Show!