The TECNA 9346/4,5 is a long-reach industrial spring tool retractor - a retractor tool balancer for tools weighing 4.4-8.8 lb, for example drills, small nutrunners or riveting tools - and it works equally with any other tool in that weight range.

Cable travel is 14.8 ft (4,500 mm) and capacity is adjustable across 4.4-8.8 lb (2-4 kg). It is a retractor, so when you let go the tool returns to its rest position, clear of the work, rather than staying where you leave it. A spring drum inside winds the cable in and carries the tool's weight, which is why retractors like this are also called spring balancers. Hanging the tool takes its weight off the operator's arm, which cuts fatigue on repetitive assembly-line work, and keeps the tool, and its hose or cable, off the bench and off the floor, so they last longer.

This is the long-reach version: 14.8 ft (4,500 mm) of cable travel against 8.2 ft on the standard TECNA 9346, for stations where the tool has to come a long way down from a high mounting point. Capacity is the same.

This model has an automatic ratchet lock. It stops the cable rewinding so you can work without it pulling back on the tool - inside a vehicle body, for example. Let the tool rise slowly to lock it; to release, pull down slightly and let it rise quickly. Let it rise at a sensible speed and it will not lock when you do not want it to. The lock can be disabled by tightening a screw, if you would rather not have it.

Do not need the ratchet lock? The TECNA 9336/4,5 is this same retractor without it, at the same capacity and cable travel.

If the drum spring ever breaks, a safety device blocks the balancer so the tool cannot fall. If it trips, do not try to free it - have the balancer serviced.

Size it on the total hanging weight - the tool, its accessories and the length of hose or cable the balancer lifts - which has to sit inside the capacity range. Electric, pneumatic and hydraulic tools all suspend the same way.

Specifications:

• Capacity: 4.4-8.8 lb (2-4 kg), adjustable
• Cable travel: 14.8 ft (4,500 mm)
• Ambient temperature: 41 to 140 F (5 to 60 C)
• Stainless steel cable
• Rugged cast aluminium body
• Adjustable capacity
• Safety suspension
• Safety device against load dropping due to spring breakage
• Automatic ratchet lock to stop cable rewinding, can be disabled
• Adjustable stroke limiting device
• Cable guide in antifriction material
• Inert spring drum assembly
• Polyamide thimble

The structure you hang it from has to be stronger than five times the balancer weight plus the maximum load - and if several balancers share one structure, five times the total of all of them, each on its own independent connection point. Always connect the safety suspension to a separate support, and set the stroke limiter so the tool never comes to rest above the operator.

Made in Italy, to DIN 15112. Breaking load is guaranteed at a minimum of five times the declared maximum load on every sensitive part. Every production lot is sample-tested too: a static test at 1.25 times the maximum rated load held for ten minutes at full stroke, and a dynamic test at 1.1 times maximum load run for an hour.

Other long-reach models in the same series: 9347/4,5 (8.8-13.2 lb), 9348/4,5 (13.2-17.6 lb), 9349/4,5 (17.6-22 lb), 9350/4,5 (22-31 lb).

Browse all tool retractors with a ratchet lock. If you need the load to stay where you leave it instead of returning to rest, that is a zero-gravity balancer, not a retractor.

Supported in the USA by Tool Balancers USA.