Need a mini linear actuator that is easy to print and implement in your robotics DIY projects?
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Assembling process
Schematics
Licensing
As everything on Hackaday, all that is published here is for grabs and to make your own. If you plan to sell it, please make it really different or had functionality to it. We know all of that its obvious and already written but we wanted to say it explicitly.
Hi!
it has been a long time o there is a lot to tell you about.
First, we made the ¨hall sensor 3d printed mini linear actuator¨ working. It works great and it much much easier to print and assemble that the previous one, less pieces, ligther and cheaper. So we will publish the files in due time or if anyone specifies a request.
Also, we were at the WMF at New York and it was awesome!
We met with:
Curt https://hackaday.io/project/159098-stomach-acid-powered-smart-pill
Kent https://hackaday.io/project/94611-gutters-to-gardens
Johannes https://hackaday.io/project/120377-3d-printed-strain-wave-gear
and Michael https://hackaday.io/project/20165-linear-delta-robot-3d-printed
All of them had great porject and most importantly willingness to contribute and share so check them out and drop a like.
We had the opportunity to be a part of a live tweet in hackaday so check that out also:
https://twitter.com/hackaday/status/1043532657437470720
Thank you everyone that took interest in this project, that got us to the semifinals and has made us learn a lot.
So as always feel fre to ask anything.
First of all, we are going to visit the WMF at NYC. Hackaday has a slot to speak about the Prize and they asked us if we would like to speak a little bit about the experience and we said yes! If you are going to be around the area come by and say hi.
So about the current actuator.... we had an idea.
We always tought that the design was pretty clunky, big, lots of mechanical components... and it comes for the thing that makes it "great", the potenciometer.
That thing its so hard to calibrate.
So the current desing we take the H bridge and the "position sensor"from the servo. So if we are going to replace the potenciometer.... no more H bridge. So thats an easy fix: https://www.adafruit.com/product/1438
We have use this board before in the OWI arms project and it works great, also the code its much much cleaner than having to simulate you have a servo attach.(also availabel for feathers)
So the potenciometer? we need something thats not mechanical so, hall sensor.
We tried out hall sensors from Adafruit and they work great as a digital ( you need a resistor) or analog sensor. Keep in mind the polarity of your magnet because that matters.
So the lighter, thinner, simpler, less patrs...er linear actuator:
Hi!
So we have been asked how to print the actuator because theirs keeps breaking.
To address this concern we have uploaded the profile file from Cura in the file section(Perfilimrpresion.curaprofile) for you to implement it. Fare in mind that this configuration is with a 0.3 tip in a 30x30x30cms printer, you may want to adjust that.
It's in spanish but you'll get it.
Also two things, first we are thinking about redesigning the actuator in a way that yeah it will have like 5 cables BUT!!! it will be like so much slim so you can choose what works better for you.
Second thing, we have been invited to participate at the World Maker Faire. Like for 3 minutes in a panel but we tink its great! When we get more details we will share them with you.
So, remember when we said to all of you that you should put your filaments on a box with the biggest bag of silica gel that you could find?
About that... DON'T DO IT!
Really bad advise and sorry about that. The silica gel has a limit of water that can absorb and we are on a shared office space with full blown air conditioner, the silica disolved itself and became an oily liquid. This was all over our filaments and when it gets on the gear of the printer extruder, it grinds.... so a lot of unfinished prints.
The solution, we cleaned out all of it and replace it with rice.
Once every two weeks we take it out and let it rest on the sun. This happens because we dont have a lot of rotation on some filaments so....
However take this advise with a grain of salt( no pun intended), its working and we will keep you posted.
What will happen if you want to change the speed of the actuator? Sometimes we need to control some factors of our design for some types of applications, simplifying it could be said: changing the engine is the correct way, but we have found another way.
Whith modifying the steps of the screw can get good results, this can be done from the model. How? for many the answer is obvious but we will show how to do it with the designs we have made and are available for download.
In the Files section there is a file called Piston, this is available in various formats, We work in Autodesk Fusion 360, thus the instructions are made for this application but can also be used for help in other software. Changing the steps of the screw causes it turn faster or less quickly, in the post the screw have a five revolutions in the coil function so with other value the result would look like this
Also you have a change the piston in the same file,
If you want more details with how to do it, go to instructions section there are a step by step of the process.
Hi!
We wanted to share the video for the finals here also.
Have a great day!
Hi everyone. So yesterday Alvaro Villoslada asked us how strong is the actuator and..... we didnt know. So the best way we found to measure it was to pull up weight until we broke it.
It worked great until 450 grs.
500grs broke it. Thats with our design and the wway we print the screw. Hope to see people pulling more!
Hello everyone, Jonathan and i wanted to say thank you for all the support and attention that made this project get to the finals. This project has given us so many thing like joy, peer recognition and a challenge.
To the people that asked us about the finger, that is a part from an old version of this project:
So that is why the finger exists.
We will continue the project as long as any of you sees an aplication and we can chip in to make it better. So feel free to use it and to ask any question or suggestion.
We will see you again at August at the Human - Computer Interface Challenge!
This is a simple application of the mini linear actuator, in this case is a robotic finger used in a robotic hand
Hi, we finally printed out and made it work as you can see on the next video.
The build instructions are pretty self explanatory, however in the video we skip the servo dismouting part and glueing the gear to the potenciometer, let us know if you need a video of that also.
About the humidity, this was the solution:
A big box with lots of silica in it.
The components are obtained from Servo Motor, the servo is disassembled and you extract the potentiometer and the control board
The internal motor of the micro servo should be replaced, in his place its added the Pololu 100:1 Micro Metal Gearmotor
Now print the components, there are a five components, in the files section you should find the parts in different formats, you can download and print directly the .stl's
Hi. I know this is a very old topic but I hope you guys are still interested about the topic. Do you think you can still get optimal performance if you increase the length of the printable components? (Not too much maybe 2 or 3 centimers more.) That would be perfect for the project I am working on.
Nice design! Just curious, have you measured the force the actuator delivers?
Hi Alvaro, glad you like it!
We'll get rigth on that and post a log just for you. See you then.
Very slick! I have been working on a 3d printed linear actuator of my own and it had not occurred to me to disassemble the servo.
Hi Michael. What a great build!
It's great to meet people with similar ideas, hope some of our project can enhance yours.
Are you dissembling the servo to get the feedback potentiometer? Can you not use some other pot?
Hi Ray. Yes we found the servo a cheap way to get a H bridge circuit and a potenciometer at once so thats the way we did it. However you could find the pieces and build it but we think it would be the same price and a little more time consuming. However it would be a great exercise of design.
Thanks. The best way really is to put the files on Github. Then just post a link. then you don't have to keep uploading and githum keeps the entire history of you project
Hi Chris, the files are ready in .step and .f3d formats, we hope you find them useful.
I think this is a fantastic project. Being able to incorporate the components within other designs makes for much better efficiency and will look better too. I'm looking forward to seeing how you actually assemble it with all components because I'm finding it hard to follow the video.
The next post will be the disassembly of the servo. Thanks for the feeback Ray!
Do you have CAD files? Yes I can import and convert STL but STEP files or the like would save people quite a lot of work.
I have some ideas I'd like to try to add strength and reduce weight
Hi chris.
Thank you for your feed back. We are going to upload the files in .step format as you asked. The thing is that the page blocked our IP, we think because of the volume of the files. We'll update you asap. Hope to ear about those ideas.
Giovanni Leal
leesoonyao123
Jaime García
Hi, do you have files for the hall sensor model ?