Rotary Lift has been granted United States patent No. 9,550,658 for its versatile Trio vehicle lift arms. This is in addition to U.S. patent No. 8,973,712, granted in 2015, which also covers aspects of the design. Trio arms are standard on Rotary Lift SmartLift inground lifts and SPOA10 two-post lifts.
Trio Arms feature a proprietary three-stage design in a two-piece package that allows technicians to choose from a wide range of easily adjusted adaptors for any application. The original three-stage arms introduced by Rotary Lift in 2005 consist of three telescoping sections that slide inside of each other. The Trio arm design keeps the first two telescoping arm sections and replaces the third with a lightweight sliding adapter assembly integrated into the second arm.
This design lets technicians easily interchange truck adapters, round polymer adapters or three-position flip-up adapters depending on the job at hand. They can smoothly rotate the adapters 360 degrees and can slide them from a fraction of an inch to several inches along the lift arm for precise positioning, according to Rotary. Trio arms also have a lower profile than traditional three-stage arms, providing greater clearance between the lift and the vehicle. This is especially important when servicing low-slung vehicles where other arms might make contact with body panels, the company adds.
“Trio arms make it easier and more comfortable for technicians to properly set up a lift to reach the manufacturer’s recommended lifting points,” said John Uhl, director, light-duty product management for Rotary parent company Vehicle Service Group, and one of the inventors. “They can switch out adapters as needed and slide them into place with a minimum of time and physical effort. No other lift arm offers the fine adapter adjustment possible using our Trio arms.”
Trio arms were designed by Rotary engineers in Madison, Indiana, and performance-tested to 20,000 lift cycles, which is the equivalent of 10 years of real-world use. All SmartLift inground lifts and SPOA10 two-post lifts are third-party tested and Automotive Lift Institute (ALI) certified to meet industry safety and performance standards. They are proudly built in Madison.
