Boat Lift Controls

Congratulations on getting your new boat lift. Now its time to make it work the way that suites your needs. There are many options when it comes to the controls you use to raise and lower your boat into the water. We will go over four of the more popular ones today.

Let’s start with the most basic control which is manual controllers without spring loaded handles. This option was a mainstay for many years. You could set the handles in one direction up or down and the lift would not stop until you shut the switches off. The problem with that is if you turn your back for a minute the lift could easily dump your boat off the top. If you just set the lift to lower, when it hits bottom the metal cables could unwind in a very unfriendly manner. Some jurisdictions will not allow this option for safety reasons.

The next basic option is the spring loaded controller option, which is much safer than the locking controllers I mentioned above. The problem people have with this type of controller is that you have to hold the handles in one direction for the boat lift to continue moving up or down. Once you let go of the handles, the spring mechanism will move the controllers to the off position.

The more modern choice of controllers is the auto run lift controls. The brand we use is Gem Remotes and come in two styles generally speaking. The first style is WITHOUT auto stop. This set up allows you to raise and lower your lift remotely, but you have to hold the remote in the up or down position until the boat gets to the height you want.

The final style of controller that I use most often is the Gem remote WITH auto stop. It’s a set it a forget it type of system that comes with a limit switch. The limit switch is set in a position that turns with the boat lift motor. All you have to do is set the upper and lower limits of the limit switch and the lift will automatically stop once the lift hits the high side or the low side of the limit switches range. This is my preferred method of controlling boat lifts.

Call Batista Electric 239-850-5007if you’d like to go over boat lift control options.