I'm designing a freestanding home theatre cabinet for a client and we need to specify an hydraulic lift. I've read bad reviews of Inca products on this site, but I was wondering what the opinions of Auton vs. Chief were. We don't need a swivel, just up and down lift. Any input is appreciated.

Thanks!

Rachel Stearns

Inca is a horrible company to deal with. Cheif has been awesome for many years now. We have had very few dealing with Auton. Jeff

I don't beleive any of them make a "hydraulic" lift. They will be a rack & pinion type drive or a chain drive. What are you trying to lift and what is you lifting distance?

Robbie S

With Auton we have had multiple failures of the contact closure boxes that have been quite irritating. They are also quite loud. The actual lift and motors seem to be reliable. They are very expensive for the build quality. But it is a custom product.

My mistake. You are correct, they are not really 'hydraulic' lifts. We are lifting a 42" Fujitsu Plasmavision, which I believe weighs around 66 pounds. It only needs to be lifted the distance of the height of the cabinet, about 28-30 inches.

We've used the auton lifts and have never had any problems with them. I do agree they are rather pricey for what you get and are very loud.

We found another company called lift-tech. They built a custom lift for us and their workmanship on the lift was very impressive. It was also unbelievably quiet. It's been in service for 1 year now and have had no problems with it. They have RF & IR Options available. You can find them at www.televisionlifts.com

Robbie S

I found this people www.motivateddesign.com in the EHX expo in Orlando last March. Their price range is between Auton and Lift-Tech. I just spoke to them today because I'm looking for a Plasma lift that folds up in the ceiling and they told me that they would be at CEDIA.

I haven't heard of the problems with Inca. What are they? We have used them a few times with no problems except the lack of terms and their providing a really spiffy moving cable support that could not possibly hold any cables except NTSC and S-video. Back when I was specifiying video, S, component and VGA, they were amazed to hear of such a thing, and it did not seem like it bothered them that I had to make my own harness festoon.

All lifts cost too much, I think, though.

I had a really nifty Chief product, a lift that would lower a small projector almost 30", then fold up into an 11" joist space" UNFORTUNATELY, it did not drop quite straight, a piece got bent. This apparently happens often enough that they could email me photos showing just how to do surgery on its "knee." What's worse, that it happened, or that they already had photos to help me fix it?
Imagine this: you are ten feet up on a ladder, drilling into 1/8" steel, to tap it with a 1/4-20 tap (that means about three turns holding the screw in) so that one knee will now line up with the other because the unit tweaked itself. Not so installer friendly, but better than the option of sending the unit back to Chief.