The ChainMaster story began with a request for help from the theatrical world. The need was for an electric chain hoist conforming to the VBG-70 standard which was in force at the time. (VBG is an accident prevention and insurance organization, and VBG-70 was drawn up to improve standards of safety in venues). At the time, there was no equivalent electric chain hoist system on the market, so ChainMaster's managing director, Frank Hartung, who founded the business along with his wife, Susanne, recalls: "That was all the incentive our team needed to develop the requisite system."
In the spring of 1994, they were able to present the result: the first BGV-tested and design type approved controller, which, a year later, sailed through the test for conformity. Although, at the time, the company was trading as 'Elteko-Commerz', the new product was christened 'ChainMaster' and it wasn't too long before the company followed suit and renamed to ChainMaster also.
An important factor in its development, and one which also played a decisive role in the later success of the product, was the combination of precision control with the high standards of safety prescribed by the VBG-70 standard. Thus the Motor Positioning Control System was designed to fully satisfy all these criteria, and since this was a PC controller, complete with the requisite software and modular in design, it was suitable for a wide range of applications.
"Even in the standard configuration, our controller is equipped with all the features required for stage use," explains Hartung. "These include the positioning and monitoring of electric chain hoists, electric running gear, curtain systems, light suspension units, backdrop hoists and cable winches."
Various options are available for the modular system: path- and time-synchronized traversing, positioning with incremental or absolute encoders, networking, load-monitoring systems, centralized or decentralized designs and other options such as speed control.
However, with the development of electric chain hoist systems and controllers, ChainMaster's designers had by no means exhausted their creativity: other developments were to follow, and the firm now also produces and distributes manual controllers, current sub-distribution panels and VBG-8 rigging lifts, as well as a wide range of accessories.
In 2001, for example, the company released the VarioTrolley, a sophisticated item of electric running gear equipped with a built-in frequency converter and positioning unit. The first 24 VarioTrolleys to leave the production line received their baptism of fire at the 2001 Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen, alongside 24 ChainMaster BGV-C1 chain hoists, controlled by a redundant ChainMaster control system.
One of ChainMaster's greatest successes was the introduction of the VarioLift in 1998. Around 18 months in development, the VarioLift delivered precision hoist-positioning. The result was a VGB-70 lift with an integrated, vector-controlled frequency converter with a high-impulse incremental encoder, yielding positioning accurate to the nearest 0.2mm. Today, the VarioLift range includes models with load capacities ranging from 125kg to 6,300kg, conforming to the new BGV-C1 norm and covering applications as diverse as the movement of scenery at speeds of up to 30m/min to the lifting of heavy loads.
Parallel to the development of new products (the designers are currently working on a multi-bus control board for use in the electro- and automation-engineering sectors) has been the development of the firm itself. The company now employs 16 people in its high-tech production facility in Saxony, has built up a hig
