Custom Vertical Lift for Cardinal Kinetic’s Automate 2026 Booth

From concept to a fully built machine waiting for pickup, this was one of those projects that reminded us why we love what we do.

Cardinal Kinetic needed a custom vertical lift for their booth at Automate 2026. The lift would be part of a larger conveyor demonstration alongside Pulse Roller pop-up transfer modules, moving product between two levels and returning it on a loop. Our scope was the mechanical structure: design, fabricate, and ship a ready-to-integrate lift carriage system on an aggressive timeline.

The mechanical scope included custom servo mounting brackets, extrusion mounts for InoDrive and ConveyLinx-AI2 MDR drive cards, upper and lower limit proximity switch brackets, and photoeye mounting hardware for the lift carriage. Cardinal Kinetic was responsible for sourcing and integrating the rollers, drives, and controls. We delivered the structure ready to receive all of it.

The trade show context changed how we thought about every detail. This lift wasn’t going into a production facility where it would eventually be tucked behind guarding and cable trays. It was going on a trade show floor, under lights, with engineers and operations people walking around it and looking at it from every angle.

There’s nowhere to hide on a show floor. That pushed us to be more intentional.

The Lexan guarding on the tower was also a deliberate choice that benefited from the setting. On a production floor, guarding is primarily about safety. Here, it also let people see the carriage travel through its full range of motion. Exactly what a trade show demo is supposed to do.

This was a rewarding build in a lot of ways. Good customer, clear scope, a hard deadline we hit, and a couple of techniques we’ll use again. Proud of how it came out.