Just saw this on YouTube and thought it was interesting: Building This SAVED me 10,000 Dollars! - YouTube
Izzy has been hyping those vacuum lifting thingies for a while now.
Not sure if it’s strong enough for the kinds of materials wet expect to come through the fiber laser area, but figured I’d throw out the idea anyway.
When we were talking a 4x8 fiber laser I assumed we’d need something like a crane to help load, but that got back-burnered when the plan scaled back.
I was looking at magswitch lifting things for the laser; it didn’t occur to me to look at vacuum lifters. it’s a neat idea for sure and it’d work on aluminum too
Northern tool has an A frame gantry crane.
I have been low key designing a cart that is truck height . It would pivot so I could get it through doors. I would then make the load horizontal to load onto the laser
Izzy’s vacuum lift looks interesting, although I wonder if Asmbly’s ceiling is too high to make it usable. I have the Rockler panel cart Joe listed and it works very well for 4x8 plywood sheets. I imagine metal sheets are considerably heavier than plywood, so I would double check load capacity.