Mannesmann M 012-T-220 Universal Hosit 220 kg

Although I have a 1 Ton chain hoist, I did not want to move that from its normal position, hanging from a joist in the garage.I needed to lift a 160kg load on and off a trolley, several times, in the back garden, and constructed a temporary gantry for this. I thought the 180kg version of this hoist might be a bit marginal, so for the sake of an extra £2.60 decided to get this 300kg version.From what I can tell, it is pretty much the same as the 180kg version, but uses 7mm diameter propylene rope and has 8 plastic pulley wheels, rather than 6, each of 40mm groove diameter. This gives a theoretical 8 to 1, rather than 6 to 1, mechanical advantage, which helps with lifting, or dragging, heavier loads.The hoist is a pretty simple, but effective, construction. The zinc coated plates between and either side of the pulley wheels seem to be made of quite thin steel, of 1mm thick, but should be adequate for the job. Each of the pair of zinc coated hooks is 3mm thick. The three zinc coated bolts through each block are 8mm diameter, by 60mm long, held in place by zinc coated fibre lock hex nuts. Zinc coated spacers keep the plates separated by the required amount, to reduce friction. In general, for its price, the hoist is adequately well made for the occasional lifting, or dragging, task.In the way it was assembled, only seven of the pulleys could operate, so only giving a 7 to 1 advantage. So I had to re-thread the rope through the 8th pulley and tie it off to the other block to resolve this. I did not think much of the plastic fixing for the end of the rope and much prefer a good knot.The ends of the polypropylene rope were not heat sealed, but just had a bit of adhesive tape wrapped around them, which will soon fall off, allowing the end of the rope to fray, so I may heat seal the ends myself.The hoist does not come with the supporting bar shown in the illustration, but I never expected that anyway. The supporting hooks will take up to a 14mm diameter bar, bolt or shackle.In the end I did not use this hoist for the particular job, as after ordering it the job could not wait for delivery , so I had to use my chain hoist. However this rope hoist did not cost that much and will come in handy for other jobs.Even with an 8 to 1 advantage, a 160kg load still requires a pull of at least 20kg, so not an insignificant force to apply by hand. With the full 300kg load the pull required is likely to be more than 40kg, really more than most people could manage on their own.An issue with such a rope hoist is that, unlike a chain hoist, it cannot hold a load on its own, unless the rope is tied off, which can be difficult to do while applying up to a 40kg pull. There is no means provided for "locking" the hoist, so it can hold a load, such as to manoeuvre a trolley underneath the load. So this may need two people to carry out a lift, when it is easily achieved alone with a chain hoist. However compared to a chain hoist this is about a third of the cost and is much more convenient, lighter and smaller to move around.All round this is a very good simple hoist that is very useful to have available, but I would not consider lifting 300kg with it, if only because the pull required would be more than I could manage alone.The realistic lifting travel is about 1.6 metres (about one ninth of the rope length), but this could be increased by using a longer rope, of suitable diameter and load capacity.

Great value and this size had a bigger diameter cord so the twisting problem mentioned in some of the reviews was not as bad as the smaller diameter ( I had previously bought a smaller one for another job.). Perfectly adequate gearing on the blocks. I am really happy with this product.

It lifts large patrol tents in the loft at scouts and hasn't failed yet so recommended, just watch for the rope twisting in the pulleys i took mine out and re did the roping after taking the twist out of the rope and it is now much better. Its also super cheap

Pulleys seem ok but the rope is too stiff and very awkward to operate as it doesnt move freely in the pulleys. I suggest replacing it with climbing rope or similar load capacity. Did the job i need it for but poor rope

very handy for the purpose I bought it for

Exactly what I wanted, good quality (and value), delivered next day, and works just as it should. I re-threaded the rope through the pulleys, symmetrically on either side of the hooks of each block, to give a lower mechanical advantage of 1:4 (and 2x the lifting distance), since this was all I needed, but can always revert to 1:8 if necessary.

If your looking for a couple of hundred kilo hoist you can't go far wrong with this. I thought the rope was adequate, criticised in earlier reviews, I tied the other end of the rope to the lower block, tightened up a couple of nuts. They are nylok nuts so no further problems. God bit of over engineered design.

It worked.