prototype everything

 

I bought four of these stout hangers from Ikea long ago because of its design and appearance. They are one of those purchases that at the time I had no particular plan for their use, but I knew I would find use for them down the road.The time has come to put them to use in the barn, but for what? I decided to prototype the mounting rather than "just do it" by screwing them to the plywood wall. The purpose of prototype them is to optimize their use, mounting locations which including height and more. The prototype is simply fastening them to a piece of scrap plywood which allows testing them without committing to fasten them to the walls.

the obvious arrangement to mount two in close proximity such that a number of wide cleaning tool can be hung upside down

even by stacking multiple pieces of things like this floor squeegie and push broom it is not a good use of the hangers 

I decided to use them to hang my bicycles; first with the most obvious arrangement with two hangers for each bike

As I tested the ease of use and ergonomics it turned out the obvious side by side hangers does not work well at all. Once lifted a bike that high it became obvious is hang the bike at the seat with a single hanger. 

hanging a bike by the seat is the most ergonomic and space efficient

Next I want to optimize the space utilization. That is to pack as much into a given storage wall and floor space. I measured the width on left and right side of the hanger a bike occupies. This allows me to place two bikes side by side as close as possible without sacrificing ease of use.

I prototyping the mounting location of this pan, tilt, and zoom camera also as with many other security cameras

Due to the design of the steel building there are no vertical support for the plywood wall panel but horizontal girts that are 6' 4" apart. For each piece for 4' x 8' wall panel I use only 6 fasteners to secure it to the girts. Because of this the strongest place to fasten these hangers is at the upper girt, using long self drilling metal screws. This the full weight carrying capacity of each hangers.

only the two upper screws land on the steel girt; these two screws are under tension with load on the hanger

the sole lower screw is there only to hold the hanger down and is not under any load so a small screw is used to fasten the hanger to only the plywood

I install this hanger reasonably close to the steel post; the next hanger would be placed for another bike, taking the lease wall space

for me the most ergonomic way to hang a bike high up is using the saddle seat

each square inch of the wall is a limited resource, so I seek out the most space efficient and cost effective designs for hanging all the stuff

this is another prototyping of finding the optimum location for one security camera

this is another prototyping of a PTZ security camera that was moved from inside the barn out to the inner (my mock torii) gate