not the easiest unit to use. some questionable design choices really limit the flexibility of the tripod -you need to unbolt the winch if you want to be able to extend the tripod leg that supports it. Instead of cotter pins, they used key rings to hold the pegs in place, so it takes a while to try to change things up, especially the one leg with the winch. We used this to extract something from a hole that weight about 120 pounds. After its first use, the cable on the winch has started to fray. Would never dream of using this for a person on a confined space entry - NEVER. But to get something heavy lifted up from out of a hole, this was a decent option. And the price was right.