I’ve always seen them on TV, and in professional garages and factories. I know they allow you to lift things far heavier than you normally could. But, how do they actually do that? I have seen that you pull one chain alot and it lifts it a little, so I’m sure that has something to do with it.
In: Engineering
Nothing’s for free, right? If a block and tackle allows you to lift much heavier weights than you could normally, there has to be a trade-off, right? Right.
Here’s the insight I just recently gained that helped me understand. The trade-off you’re making with a block and tackle is that you have to pull the chain/rope a lot farther, to raise something than you would if you were doing it without the block and tackle.. I mean, if you were just pulling straight on a rope to hoist something, you need to pull ten feet of rope to lift the object ten feet. With a block and tackle, you have to pull a lot more than just ten feet through the block in order to lift an object just ten feet. That’s the cost. The benefit is that you can use the technique to lift much heavier things.
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