How Elebia’s R2 Automatic Release Hook Works

Meet the Elebia R2 Release Hook

I’m Dan Sherwood with Mazzella, and I’m here today to show you the latest product from Elebia. This is the R2 release hook.

The R2 hook is not only the most cost-effective Elebia hook, it’s also a little different in use than the rest of the line. It is designed to have somebody manually engage it to a load, and then it can automatically release off that load. Whereas the rest of the Elebia line of products are designed around automatic engagement and disengagement with the load.

Top Link Options and Release Button

First off, we’ll go ahead and start up here at the top link. We have three different top link options for it. Right now, we’re showing the pear link option. We also have a smaller shackle type option, and then we have a swivel type option.

Moving down, we have the push button, the automatic release button. It’s protected by a strong plastic shroud to ensure that there’s no accidental pushes to the button.

LED Lightbar

We have our LED light bar indicator. This indicator is going to have different LED statuses, telling you where the hook is at. In the blue LED light, that means you’re good to lift. The red LED light means you’re not good to lift. When it’s green, that means the hook is in an open position. And then white tells you that the battery’s getting low.

Rechargeable Battery

The other feature on these hooks is they have a removable rechargeable battery. It’s a simple twist lock battery. So when you take it out, if you need to replace it, you can have your spare battery ready to go. You can go ahead, slide it in, twist, and your hook is back up and running.

You can take the other battery, put it on the charger, get that charging. You never have to take this hook out of service to charge it.

Spring vs. Rigid Latch

We’re going to come down here now to the latch. This hook is currently equipped with the standard spring latch. We also have a rigid latch that is a simple bolt-on style latch. Takes a few minutes to install. You can do that yourself.

Normally Open and Normally Closed Hooks

And then coming down to our hook in our release function, these hooks come in two different release functions. We call the first one a normally open hook. When we release it, that hook’s going to open and stay in that open position until you manually close it.

The next style is a normally closed hook. It’s more of a spring controlled hook. So when you release off of that hook, it’s going to automatically close that hook back up. And then there’s two different ways to re-lock that hook: an altitude lock, as well as just pressing the button on the remote like normal to lock it.

Normally Open Hook Demo

This is our normally open hook. And we’ll go ahead, we’ll press the button to release it. You see that it dropped the sling and the hook is now in the open position.

You have to come in, close it, hold the hook for two seconds. You’ll get the blue lights. You can release it, and now that hook is back in its locked state, and you can re-engage your sling.

What Happens if the Battery Dies

Now, if you find yourself in a situation where the battery has died on your R2, the only way to be able to get the sling off of these is to use the manual latch to take it off as if you were using any other type of a sling hook.

Now, if you have the rigid latch on there, keep in mind, you will need to go locate a charged battery or charge that battery and get it back into the hook to get the hook to have life again to be able to come off of it.

Normally Closed Hook Demo

Now the hook we have on here is what we call the normally closed hook. This is the hook that has the spring closed hook on it. With our sling in a slack position, we’ll go ahead, hit the open button. We’ll get the green light, which tells us we’re okay. We can start lifting up. It’ll release the sling and it’ll come back to this lock position.

Now at this point, we have two different options we can use to re-lock this hook. We can come to our remote and hit the close button and that’ll lock it.

Altimeter Lock and Fail Safe

Or the other feature of this hook is it has an altimeter lock in it where we can raise it. This is a settable distance. You’ll see it triggers and now that hook is back in the locked position. And it zeroes at the point where you hit the open button on the hook. That’ll be your zero. And if you’re going three feet on your settings, you’ll then lift up three feet for it to lock.

The other feature of the R2 hook, similar to all the Elebia line products, is it has a fail safe in it. Once you have over 20 kilograms of load on the hook, if you go ahead and try to open the hook, either via the manual release button or the remote, it’s not going to function. You’re going to need to lower the load. You’ll have to get less than 20 kilograms on it. And then you can hit the button and it’ll get you into the release state of the hook.

Comparison to Competitors

So when you’re comparing the Elebia R2 hook to its competitors, there’s some pretty significant differences between it. The first and foremost being the replaceable battery. This hook never needs to come out of service as long as you have a spare and charged battery.

Next, the normally closed hook option, with that automatic close and the altimeter lock. Lastly, using the eMAX remote, you can pair up to 24 R2 hooks to it and have those hooks open not only simultaneously, but you can go through and open each hook individually.

Remote Options

Similar to the rest of the line of the Elebia products, we have four different remote options. We have the E-Mini remote, which has the open and close button to it. We have the E-Max remote, which has the LCD screen to it that allows you to go in and change the parameters of the hook, as well as pair up to the 24 hooks to it.

Then we have what’s called the EINST hook, which will go and get installed up in the crane control panel and allow you to program one of the crane remotes to the opening function. Then we also have what we call the e-link. That’s more for like a PLC program type system that’ll automatically tell the hook to disengage under set parameters.

Inspections and Maintenance

The R2 hook falls under the same B-3020 standard that the rest of the Elebia line falls under. You need to have an annual OSHA qualified inspection. Customers can repair or replace any of the latches. Any other type of issues with the hook, we recommend that you send it into one of our service centers.

Good Fit Applications

The R2 release hook really shines in the steel erectors, the ports, construction, any type of industry where you need to automatically release from a load where you are able to manually engage with it.

This hook not only improves safety by keeping people out of danger from the release or out of unfavorable environments, it also can help improve efficiencies.

If you’re interested in finding out more or seeing a demo of the R2 hook or any of the other Elebia line products, reach out to us and we can get somebody in touch with you to set something up.