Specialized Forklift Attachments Haul Home Appliances

An Italian forklift attachment company has created customized clamps for lifting and moving washing machines, dryers, refrigerators and other home appliances.

Bolzoni Auramo built four iMove Intelligent Home Appliance Clamps for the consumer appliance maker Westinghouse for use in its South African warehouse. The custom-built clamps can be mounted on 2.5-ton forklifts to handle various models of freezers, chest freezers, ovens, and ranges.

Used at Westinghouse’s South African Warehouse

The forklift clamp attachments will be used in Westinghouse’s warehouse in Centurion, South Africa, to offload appliances from trucks arriving from factories and load them onto other trucks for delivery throughout the nation.

The clamps were designed for safe, damage-free load handling and include technical features found in most standard carton clamps, such as having a very rigid structure wide visibility window and a single piece double “T” profile.

Forklift Clamp Attachment Features

They also feature large surface aluminum pads with special high-friction vulcanized rubber lining and a new block valve with flow divider for precise arms synchronization.

New self-angling cylinder fixings help avoid breakage and new fixing system of sliding pads help relieve stress on the appliance when they are in motion.

The specialized clamps work with a high-tech microprocessor that helps direct clamp operations.

Like a standard clamp attachment, the forklift operator has full control of arm opening and closing, as well as lifting and tilting But these also feature automatic clamping force selection controlled by the computer.

High-Tech Sensors Identify Products

The system is base on the detection of the type and configuration of the load through a volumetric analysis of the spaces occupied by the load. Lasers and ultrasonic sensors are used to measure the load.

When the control unit receives the detected data, it can instantly identify the type and configuration of the load and compare with a matrix database that tells it what it is. This then tells the control unit which proportional valve to use to provide the correct hydraulic pressure in the clamping cylinders for the specific handling needs of the load.

Other Specialized Features

The forklift clamp attachments also feature:

• A single oscillating pad
• Interchangeable left-right pads for even more rubber wear
• Thin arm profile and new elbow support design to allow for easier knifing between loads

The four clamps are the first of their kind and result in minimized product handling damages and maximization of productivity.