PLOIESTI, Romania -- The “Foldable Roof Rack” is much different than the regular roof racks where is necessary to climb or stretch yourself to load it (being exposed to accidents – slipping, muscular stretching, and so on).
With the “Foldable Roof Rack”, you just unfold the rack, which will bring you the loading platform to an ergonomic height (about 50 cm above the ground) and will let you put whatever your stuff/equipment is, on it. Once the equipment loaded on the rack, simply lift the rack up to the roof of the car and lock it.
The “Foldable Roof Rack” system comprises in two identical modules mounted on a set of cross bars fixed on the top of the car.
Each module has two L shaped frames jointed together on top. With an innovative mechanism, those frames are forced to synchronously fold/unfold in the same time keeping the loading platform parallel with the ground.
The inner mechanism have a set of gas and elastic springs which together balances the forces and torques, making possible to load/unload up to 50 kg with no effort.
The entire system is equipped with a retention device which to secure in place the rack when is folded and a safety trigger to unlock the system and unfold it.
Because of the shape of the frames, the system creates three planes; on each of this being possible securely fix your stuff. These planes are the loading platform – always parallel with the ground, inner side – always perpendicular with the ground and the outer side - which is perpendicular with the ground when the rack is folded or unfolded, but which flips 180 degree during folding/unfolding operations.
The launch ing campaign could be seen here - http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-foldable-roof-rack/...
The “Foldable Roof Rack” is designed to be manufactured in several sizes, in order to cover the large variety of cars and the equipment which to be handled.
Because of this variety (cars and equipment) is necessary to have different sizes of the loading platform and the height, as any possible user to find the appropriate version.
Those versions of the “Foldable Roof Rack” are designed to fit from sedans to SUVs and minivans – where the height is different, and also to provide solutions from single purpose (like one kayak or one bike) to multipurpose (two-three bikes, two kayaks, a boat or similar situations).
As for physical features, the “Foldable Roof Rack” will range from 60 to 130 cm wide, from 50 to 80 cm height and will weight from 6 to 10 kg.
Minimum weight to handle will be 25kg up to the maximum that will be 50kg.
For special purposes (heavy weight) like certain contractors will be possible to make it handle up to 75kg.
The “Foldable Roof Rack” will be mounted on a dedicated set of cylindrical crossbars, with a special device on ends in order to make the mounting process easier, and also to assure the safety. Those crossbars with the locking devices could remain on the car, used to carry lightweight equipment (ski sets)
