Wire rope v. Synthetic

[Jim.ME]

I don’t call a boom on the back of an electric truck or a gantry in a building a crane.
I’m talking construction cranes from 100 to 1000 ton capacity.
Synthetic is to prone to UV damage to be used in that situation.
And it’s real easy to check a wire rope by running it through a shop rag.
Checking a synthetic rope is much harder.
So they may be out there but I have never seen or heard of it.

I was involved with mobile cranes for years and while it has been slow catching on, the synthetic ropes have been around and improving for years. Like many things they were being developed more overseas from what I saw in the 1990s. Synthetic ropes for cranes have been around in the US for years, below is a link to a 2014 article about a Manitowoc and Samson announcement. Synthetic ropes had been in use on mobile cranes before this.

Manitowoc and Samson KZTM100 rope for Mobile cranes


And info from Dyneema on their Offshore ropes.

Dyneema ropes for cranes

 

[Mule Meat]

I don’t call a boom on the back of an electric truck or a gantry in a building a crane.
I’m talking construction cranes from 100 to 1000 ton capacity.
Synthetic is to prone to UV damage to be used in that situation.
And it’s real easy to check a wire rope by running it through a shop rag.
Checking a synthetic rope is much harder.
So they may be out there but I have never seen or heard of it.

Look into the cost of enough synthetic line that is capable of lifting 100 to 1000 ton for a crane. Then compare the cost to wire rope.

 

[john in la]

I have yet to get a "bad" product from Vevor.

Vevor has some decent stuff in there price range. I have their wood router. But never buy direct from vevor. Their warranty and exchange for a damaged item is not very good.
I suggest you buy from a third party seller like amazon and get the amazon warranty so you don’t have to deal with vevor to get problems solved.

 

[m16ty]

Can you link your source for the 99% of new cranes have wire rope?

I’m in the industry. Literally the only place you see cranes with synthetic rope is electrical companies. I was probably being generous at 99%.

 

[Texasmark]

The cons to synthetic rope are it degrades in the sun, and if it rubs up against something while pulling it can be damaged/frayed.

A good steel wire rope can last a really really long time if taken care of. I have a winch that is 30+ years old and still has the original steel rope in it with no signs of damage.

The real danger with any winch use is the attachment hardware on the end breaking and the rope recoiling back at you. I have broken a fair number of cables between logging and working dozers. Never had a cable fly. They always just fell to the ground, but the dead end was still well attached to its anchor. If your hardware fails, a synthetic rope will still recoil.

I use steel on my winches and used to use poly for anchor rope on my boat but I had 2 problems with poly: Sun degrades and ruins it and it doesn't like to be chafed......how do you operate a winch without getting chafed? I used Nylon for anchor ropes and the stretching of Nylon was not a problem for an anchor rope.

I never had, nor heard of anyone tearing up a steel winch cable.....if they are old (decades) and sit out in the weather for years and maybe weren't galvanized strands to start with (just oiled/greased from the factory), then maybe they will succumb to chafing and have a few strands come loose. But that takes years to evolve.