linear Motion

[GreenEngineer]

I'm an EE and I've been tasked with adding a linear actuator to a product. I need about 10 mm of motion pushing < 100g of force. Speed and repetition rate can be very low. Only binary - fully open or fully closed motion is needed. This is battery powered product from 2 AA and long battery life is important. I need a solution that I can bang out a few hundred protos right away and then hire help to production engineer for roll out of several K per month. Production cost is critical and I've been looking at everything from little hobby DC motors to solenoids and shape memory alloy. I'm sure there is a no brainer answer, but I don't have the background to know what it is.

Thanks - s

 

[itsmoked]

If cost is everything then it will likely be a scratch job. I would look at a screw drive and something like a pager motor.

Or an eccentric cam with a spring follower.

You want cheap tear apart some floppy disk drives. Those sell for about $5 last I looked. If the drive cost 1/2 of what it sells for then you're talking $2.50

You can well imagine what part of that cost is the head motion control.



Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[sreid]

The first thought that comes to mind is something that works like a latching relay. Permanent magnets hold the actuator iron at either end and coils kick the actuator from one end to the other.