Japanese manufacturer Yokota has produced a new 250kg air hoist to challenge the strong market position held by the Mini range of Germany’s JD Neuhaus.
Frank Zwaal, marketing manager of Yokota Europe, said that the Yokota TCR 250 was designed to be a more rugged, heavier-duty product than the JDN Mini which he claimed was not aimed at heavy industrial applications.
The TCR 250 is rated at 250kg capacity in its basic configuration, but a 125kg version is also offered. This is basically the same model but with a higher line speed. A 500kg-rated version has also been re-engineered for the European market by using two falls of chain.
While admitting that the Yokota product was more expensive than the German-built JDN Mini, Zwaal said this was mainly due to the exchange rate and the value of the Japanese Yen.
A claimed benefit of the TCR 250 is that it does not have an 8m lifting height limit. It has no theoretical limit, he said, but in practice it is limited by the weight of the chain, which increases as lifting heights are raised.
Zwaal also claimed that the TCR 250 was lighter than the Mini and, at 9m/min, faster than the Mini 250 by 1m/min. The line speed of the TCR 125 model is about 18m/min.
A further difference between the two models, said Zwaal, is that Yokota offers both cord and pendant control, while JD Neuhaus offers only pendant control. Pendant controls are more popular because of their convenience, but users prefer cord control as it is cheaper and is deemed to give better control, and makes smooth starting and stopping easier, Zwaal said.
JD Neuhaus responded that lack of control had been ‘engineered out’ of its pendant control, which offers infinitely variable speed control and is more advanced than that of its competitors. It challenged many of Yokota’s claims, and asserted that the Mini was suitable for all types of industrial applications.
While the Mini is designed as a standard product with corresponding cost savings, variations such as cord control and different chain box sizes were available through the Profi series of air hoists, JD Neuhaus said.
It also claimed that the Yokota hoist used 40% more air than the Mini, which was “most likely attributable to inferior machining tolerances on the part of Yokota”.
“When comparing the relative merits of the Yokota and JDN hoists, what is most important is what are the operational parameters of the two hoists being compared,” the German company said.
• Birmingham-based Crane Care has joined JD Neuhaus’s distribution network in the UK and now offers JDN air hoists.
