I bought a bike hoist which I modified to use to raise and lower a bar that acts as a drying rack for damp clothes in my laundry room. I now have the following setup:
The problem is that when I pull on the rope attached to the wall, the right side of the bar goes up while the left side stays down. Eventually the left side of the bar also starts to go up, but by this point all the clothes on hangars have slipped down to the left side.
Is there a way to modify this pulley setup in order to have the bar raise and lower levelly?
Best Answer
As both bib and Johnny have said, the simplest way to do this is to use two separate ropes. You can either manually pull on both ropes at the same time, or the ropes can be tied together prior to each reaching its first pulley away from the wall (A & B in the image below). Alternately, as Alchymist mentioned in a comment, you can use a single rope with the middle of the rope at the wall and the two ends the attachment points at the ceiling.
Using the pulleys you already have, and keeping the location you are pulling from the same as you are currently using, you can do something like:
Pulleys A and B can be located adjacent to each other. You could, of course, use one double-pulley block for A+B. However, I assumed you would want to use the materials you already have on hand.