James M.

As a 30 year experienced electrical engineer a home maintenance fan I felt this was within my abilities to install the unit myself.
The unit arrived partially assembled.
This is was a positive from the stand point that it would fit on a singe standard pallet and transported easily in a standard pickup.
The negative was this did not correspond to the assembly instructions so I did not need to open it as I assemble the outside lift table.
The negative was that the options I ordered (two remote control points) were not mentioned in the instructions (they were in the schematic drawings) and I thought they were mistakenly not included in the shipment.
The negative was I had to manually raise the lift (to assemble the lift table) with the hand crank unknowingly damaging the plastic remote control boxes that were loosely tie-wrapped to the moving mechanism inside the lift tower. This crushed the boxes enough to bend the box cover screws and pull the screw bosses out of the plastic. I had to rebuild one completely and reassemble the other.
After this I did remove the front cover of the tower and I noticed it was damaged (bent at the bottom) and I had to straighten the bend in order for the cover the fit properly.
Last the unit up limit switches would not allow me to reach the 48 inches I needed. The maximum height from the lift base to the limit switch max position was 47.5 inches. I would need to modify the unit to get this thing to meet the porch height of 48 inches. I decided my elderly mother could transverse the half inch difference. This was a negative since the documents read it would lift to 53 inches.
Last I tested the safety stops by placing a 5 gallon bucket under the lift table and it did crush the bucket slightly before stopping. This would really have hurt someone under it.
The negative was it would not raise up to free the obstruction. I had to use the hand crank when it was in this safety stop condition. Since this uses a DC motor a diode could have corrected this and whoever was on the lift could get off to remove the obstruction. You are stuck on it if the safety stop activates.

There are two very positive things I can say about this lift.
First, this lift is the mechanism is simple and reliable. In engineering terms this design simplicity corresponds to much better reliability (less to go wrong).
Second is the price. This was a very affordable option for my mother as having it professionally done would have easily costed $10K or more.
If you have a strong mechanical and electrical aptitude than I would install this on your own otherwise leave the frustration to an installation professional.