Vidir Wire Carousel Case Study: Duro Electric, Englewood, Colorado
How a Denver-area electrical contractor put 21 wire bays of building wire and cable into a single 10-foot Vidir Wire Carousel without giving up a rack aisle.
Customer
Duro Electric
Location
2271 W. Yale Avenue, Englewood, CO 80110 (Arapahoe County)
Product
Vidir Wire Carousel, Model W39123-0734-06 — 7 carriers, 21 wire bays
Application
Motorized vertical storage of electrical wire and cable spools in a contractor warehouse
About the project
Duro Electric is an electrical contractor working out of 2271 W. Yale Avenue in Englewood, Colorado, in the south Denver metro. Like every contractor that buys wire by the spool rather than the cut length, its warehouse has to hold dozens of gauges and jacket types at once, stage them for crews leaving in the morning, and keep partial spools findable when they come back off a job.
Material Handling USA supplied and installed one Vidir Wire Carousel — a motorized vertical carousel whose carriers are enclosed wire bays, Model W39123-0734-06 — at the Englewood warehouse. The machine is deliberately short: 10’9" overall height, on an 8’9" by 6’3" footprint, with seven carriers holding 21 individual wire bays. It is the version of this platform for buildings that do not have 20 feet of clear height to give.
This project sits behind our vertical storage for electrical supply and wire distribution page and is part of the Vidir vertical storage line. We cover the Front Range from our Denver vertical storage service area.
Project scope at a glance
The situation
A contractor warehouse is not a distribution center. Floor space is shared with staging areas, gang boxes, conduit racks and vehicles, and the building is usually a leased single-story shell with modest clear height. Wire is still the hardest thing in it to store: spools are round, heavy, impossible to stack safely and easy to bury.
Stored on static reel racks, that inventory eats a wall plus the aisle in front of it. Crews pull from whichever spool is reachable rather than the one that should be used next, partial spools migrate to the floor, and nobody can see the real on-hand count of a given gauge until someone walks the rack. Copper also walks — open racks are the easiest inventory in the building to lose.
A wire carousel answers all three problems in one footprint. Every spool sits on its own rod in a labeled bay, the operator calls the carrier they want and the machine rotates it down to a single opening at working height, and the whole tower is enclosed behind mesh with a keypad on the controls.
What Material Handling USA supplied
Material Handling USA supplied and installed one Vidir Wire Carousel, Model W39123-0734-06: a freestanding powered carousel 10’9" high, 8’9" wide and 6’3" deep, with seven W39 wire-bay carriers, uprights with a 2" wire mesh front and a corrugated sheet metal back, and a front control tower.
Each carrier is divided into three wire bays — 21 bays in total — measuring 26.25" wide by 26.5" high, sized for spools up to 24" in diameter and 24" wide. Spools mount on wire bay rods, and the machine shipped with fourteen 0.75" standard-duty rods and twenty-four 1" heavy-duty rods. That mix is what lets a bay be re-cut later for different spool widths without touching the machine itself.
Capacity is the surprise on this model. Even at 10’9" it is rated for 13,000 lbs overall with a 12,385 lb live load, and the average capacity per carrier is the full 1,000 lbs the carrier is rated for — so a short machine can still be loaded with full spools rather than remnants.
Controls are intentionally simple: forward/reverse push-button rotation on a fixed-speed drive that moves carriers at up to 21 feet per minute, with a mushroom E-stop, a main power disconnect and a security keypad at the front control tower. Power is 208V, three-phase, 15 amp on an isolated circuit, roughed in by the site electrician before the crew arrived and hooked up at the front top right of the machine part-way through installation. The machine is anchored to the slab with 5/8" HILTI KB-TZ stud anchors through 10.5" x 6" foot plates.
Payout hardware — meter sliders, spinner spools and loading dollies — mounts to the same machine and is cataloged on our vertical carousel accessories and options page; this project was ordered as machine, freight and installation.
Full product specifications
Below is the published product specification for the machine installed at the Englewood warehouse. A carousel is a manufactured product, so these are the numbers used to confirm it would clear the ceiling, fit the bay and carry the spool weights. The Vidir specification sheet and the factory drawing (2-50794) agree on the 13,000 lb overall rating.
| Specification | Value |
|---|---|
| Model | W39123-0734-06 |
| Product type | Wire Carousel (vertical carousel) |
| Overall height | 10′ 9″ |
| Overall width | 8′ 9″ |
| Overall depth | 6′ 3″ |
| Overall weight capacity | 13,000 lbs |
| Live load capacity | 12,385 lbs |
| Off-balance capacity | Up to 1,950 lbs |
| Carrier type | W39 wire bay |
| Total carriers | 7 |
| Total wire bays | 21 |
| Wire bay dimensions | 26.25″ W x 26.5″ H |
| Maximum spool size | 24″ diameter x 24″ wide |
| Maximum weight per carrier | 1,000 lbs |
| Average capacity per carrier | 1,000 lbs |
| Carrier weight | 65 lbs |
| Standard-duty wire bay rods | (14) 0.75″ rods |
| Heavy-duty wire bay rods | (24) 1″ rods |
| Electrical | 208V, 3-phase, 15 amp (isolated circuit) |
| Controls | Forward/reverse push button, front control tower |
| Automation level | Pushbutton controls |
| Drive configuration | Fixed speed |
| Control options | Mushroom E-stop, main power disconnect, security keypad |
| Max. retrieval speed | 21 ft per minute |
| Guarding | Uprights, 2″ wire mesh front, corrugated sheet metal back |
| Foot plate dimensions | 10.5″ D x 6″ W x 0.375″ H |
| Concrete anchors | 5/8″ HILTI KB-TZ stud anchor |
| Shipping weight | 2,941 lbs |
| Finish | VM White Textured (300-1106), machine and carriers |
| Included | Install kit, English technical documentation |
What the contractor gained
Wire carousel or static reel rack?
| Vidir Wire Carousel (used here) | Static wire reel rack | |
|---|---|---|
| Floor footprint | One 8’9″ x 6’3″ footprint | Runs along a wall plus a clear working aisle |
| Height needed | 10’9″ clear for this model | Limited to safe manual reach anyway |
| Bay count | 21 bays at 26.25″ x 26.5″ | As many positions as wall length allows |
| Spool handling | Spools stay on rods inside the machine | Manual lift on and off the rack |
| Retrieval | Carrier rotates to one opening at working height | Walk the rack, reach or climb |
| Access control | Enclosed mesh, keypad on the control tower | Open rack |
| Best for | A large stocked wire list in a shared contractor warehouse | A handful of spools and low turnover |
Our wire spool carousel vs. wire reel rack comparison covers the economics, and the vertical carousel vs. traditional storage page applies the same logic to parts and supplies.
How to specify a wire carousel
Start with the wire, not the machine. List every spool type you stock, the largest spool diameter and width, and the weight of a full spool. Those numbers set the bay size, the rod diameter and the carrier rating — here, 26.25" x 26.5" bays, spools to 24" diameter and 24" wide, 1,000 lbs per carrier and a mix of 0.75" and 1" rods.
Then measure the building, because the building picks the model. This platform is sold in several heights on the same footprint: the 7-carrier machine here needs only 10’9" of clear height, while a 13-carrier version of the same width and depth runs 19’3" and a W45 machine reaches 21 feet. Check clear height under sprinklers and lights, a level slab that will take 5/8" stud anchors, an unobstructed path to bring sections in, and 208V three-phase 15 amp power on an isolated circuit at the machine.
Installation is a factory crew job. The site supplies a forklift and an electric scissor lift for the duration of unloading and erection, has the wiring roughed in beforehand, and has an electrician available mid-installation for final hookup — our installation services page lists the full site checklist.
Finally, decide the payout hardware up front, because retro-fitting it later is a second freight bill. For a taller machine with meter slider and spinner spool, see the 13-carrier wire spool carousel we installed for a residential electrical contractor in McKinney, Texas; for a utility storeroom, the 21-foot wire reel carousel at Tucson Electric Power; for large cable drums rather than spools, the cable drum carousel we installed for an electrical wholesaler; and for a production wire room, the eight-carrier machine at an aerospace manufacturer. For taller or highly variable loads compare a vertical lift module, for budget ranges start with the vertical storage cost and pricing guide, and machine details for this platform live on the Vidir Wire Carousel page.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Vidir wire carousel?
How many wire spools does this machine hold?
Do I need a high ceiling for a wire carousel?
How much floor space does it use?
Can wire be measured as it is pulled?
What power does a wire carousel need?
What does the site have to provide for installation?
Do you supply wire carousels to electrical contractors in Colorado?
Wire spools taking over your contractor warehouse?
Send us your spool list — largest diameter, spool widths and full-spool weights — plus your clear ceiling height, and we will size a Vidir Wire Carousel with the bay layout, payout hardware and installation scope your warehouse needs.