Thread: Name this electrical item

If you don't want to spend coin, make your own. If you have access to a machine shop it's easy, if not, it'll be kinda ugly but you can do it.

Another option to think about if you want linear motion is old line printers. If you grab the stepper motor, belt, carriage and rails you've got a prebuilt system. If you don't want to build a stepper motor controller (can be a *****, but is usually not too bad) you can just swap the stepper motor out with a servo motor and use limit switches to start and stop it.

PM me and let me know if you need any ideas, it'd help if we knew what you wanted to do with it

Cheapest would be to take a gear motor and use lead screws.Check surpluscenter.com

Originally Posted by scott_fx

thank god i didnt know about this earlier! my install would have gotten a lot more complicated! good link!

do what i can to help people spend money

not worm gears - screw jacks.

You can make your own using a high sped motor and a coarse screw thread designed for constant use - eg find a nice G-clamp with a flat thread (not a cheap one with a normal V thread) and give it plenty of lube - eg graphite grease or axle grease. Also look at the bench clamp threads. To damp the ends of the motion but 'O'-rings around the thread at the ends of the travel and use simple on-off switches to detect end points.

Also, have you considered a small hydraulic system? or compressed gas?

spdfrek could u elaborate a little bit more on using gear motors

Originally Posted by scott_fx

go on....

no - off to bed. maybe tomrrow. I would usggest looking a robotics sites - especially some of those 'robot wars' pages. those guys always love to show off how they built stuff and you shoudl find some good stuff on their sites.

This clamp has a nice coarse thread http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.a...=21193&recno=2 to show what mean but i am sure you could get a local engineering firm to make you up some nice threaded bar to use. Jsut like the stuff you get to move the beds on lathes.

personally i think hydraulics or gas pistons would sound cool and be much quicker.

if you are just opening doors then use servos with a simple 555 control circuit and a switches and potneiometers to set the open/closed positions

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~antoon/circ/archive/servo5.htm