Help with small pulley hoist.

[clint738]

I have a clothes pulley that has two metal frames, that five wooden rods go through. The metal frames are linked up with rope that go through two small pulleys screwed into the roof. The system is raised and lowered by the two ropes being joined together and tied around a hook.
My question is as follows. My wife and even myself are finding it hard too raise and lower when wet washing is placed on the lines for drying. She does not even raise it up anymore, so I end up doing a limbo dance going under it.
I have been looking for a low cost electrical system that would enable us to push a button, for raising it up and pushing another for lowering it. I was thinking of using a clothes dryer motor but have no idea of how to put the system in reverse, meaning up no problem but how do I get it down
I understand this is not quite a welding project however it could well end up being part of one.
A lot of you chaps work in all areas of manufacturing, so I thought your brains would help me...............I doubt when all fully loaded the whole system has more than 150 Lbs but my wife is only 107 Lbs soaking wet.
So any help would be very kind of you.

You could use a permanent magnet DC motor and use gears or pulleys to get the gear ratio right to handle the weight and up the torque.

To reverse the system you simply flip the polarity going to the DC motor. Toggle switches (rated for the current your pulling) can work nicely. Or if you need more current I can draw you a schematic for a control using MOSFETs easily available at Radio shack. You can also google H-Bridge and that will be the MOSFET configuration you will need.

I bought 3 DC permanent magnet motors off Ebay and paid about $30 each for them (several years ago). One is a 30Vdc and the other 2 were 50Vdc.

Amtek made some that were VERY popular for people to use for small wind turbine applications (the reason I purchased these 3).
The Amtek DC motors have since sky rocketed in price due to their popularity, but people also use treadmill motors as well.

Wind enthusiasts typically are looking for low RPM (1800 or lower) / high AMPs permanent magnet DC motors because they produce the most power at low RPMs in the wind. But I find them useful for lots of applications since they provide lots of torque.