Branch manager Adrian Van Genderen bought the cameras, from supplier Orlaco, after two accidents. In one accident, an operator was lifting a load blind into a tower. The load sling got stuck, and a person got caught in between the load and the tower wall. In another, a load scraped an object on site and damaged some materials. “It wasn’t clear whose fault it was, or what really happened, and I’d like to avoid those,” he says.

Van Genderen says that even though the cameras cannot show depth, because they hang straight down, they are still very useful.

One camera is mounted on a Liebherr LR 1160 supporting the renewal of a roof. “The crane is lifting all kinds of material on and off the roof. He can now bring the load in without excessive radio commands. If you get used to it, you can zoom in, see people walking on it, and see exactly where you land the load. In the beginning, you don’t have a feeling of how high the load is. But as you get used to it, you get better. It’s an assist. You are not working alone—you still need radio contact. But now you can see the signals from people.”

The other camera is mounted on a Liebherr LR 1300 crawler lifting equipment into a square tower, 220ft (70m) high and 60ft (20m) wide.

The only problem he reports comes partly from the high tip-height of the camera. With 300ft (91m) boom, the steam and smoke emitted from the plant—all the more plentiful in winter— can block the view.

&#8220Adrian van Genderen, Ft. McMurray, Canada branch manager, Northern Crane”

You can’t leave the cabin, but you can at least look at something, and think, ‘Oh, they’re working; what are they doing now?’

Van Genderen adds that one of the most useful features of the camera has nothing to do with the lift itself. On complex jobs, his operators may perform only a single lift each day, as each one can take a long time to rig. An operator might drop a hook down behind a barrier and hook a load, and then wait hours for the rigging team to finish the lifting prep. Being able to see what is going on during that dead time keeps operators more alert, van Genderen says: “You can’t leave the cabin, but you can at least look at something, and think, ‘Oh, they’re working; what are they doing now?’”

The zoom camera model (with 18x optical and 12x digital zoom) costs between CAD10,000 (EUR6,760)-CAD14,000 (EUR9,460) with monitor, camera and transmission system, depending on the cabling, says Jan Eisses, president of Canadian importer Orlaco Crane Cam. On lattice boom crawler and lattice boom mobile cranes, the cameras transmit to the monitor via a cable running through the middle of the lattice sections. For telescopic and tower cranes, a wireless transmitter with battery pack sends the signal to a receiver mounted below. The wireless transmitter adds the CAD4,000 to the cost.

Van Genderen says he chose Dutch supplier Orlaco because he had familiarity with it (he used it at Dutch family crane rental company Nederhoff van Genderen, before moving to Canada) and because the company had a Canadian importer.

Northern Crane is planning to buy about forty camera systems to fit many of its cranes, van Genderen says.