Linear actuators- need advice how to make

Ron Ciren wrote: : I Googled but had not much luck trying to find how to make stepper : motor linear actuators. I only need a few Newtons of thrust (10 plus : N) and 5 - 10 cm. of travel. Co$t has to be as low as possible.

A 'linear actuator' is usually a stepper with a long, threaded shaft. Possibly it will include the nut that moves, maybe not. Whare are you looking for, the whole assmebly ? They show up on the surpluss houses often.

and have both listed relatively cheap stepper linear actuators recently, though they may be both sold out now.

Yup -- Herbach is sold out of the cheap ones, All has one for $25

There were cheaper ones -- check the other surpluss houses, and keep an eye open. Ah -- Marlin P Jones

-- 14061-MS $6.95

Hi Ron,

There was a pretty good series of articles about a year ago in Nuts n' Volts magazine regrding building your own. You may want to get your hands on back issues. Can't beat the price :)

Steve

I am not familiar enough with metric to understand the scale of things here, but the most common place where they do home-made linear actuators is for CNC machines. (i.e. robotic engravers or milling machines) Here is a link to a web site dedicated to this;

not sure about stepper motors but Linak do a good range of Electric Linear Actuators.... check

best regards, colin