Has anyone experimented with any SMA actuators? I don't mean raw nitinol wire, but encapsulated actuators like those made by Nanomuscle or Miga Motors?
My first impressions:
Nanomuscle
- silent
- linear and rotatory designs
- good for small precise actuations
- built-in position sensor
- linear model not completely encapsulated
- larger, stronger designs not available
- company seems to have dropped off the face of the Internet since the end of 2004; wayback machine has archived copies of the site
Miga Motors
- silent
- small compact encapsulated design
- strength nearly equivalent to a standard hobby servo
- unreasonably expensive; $150 a piece for quantities less that 10
- inefficient; strongest model burns 27 Watts for a 1/2" stroke in 1 second
- no built-in position or force feedback
Also, the Miga Motors' actuator also appears to be called "Nanomuscle". The name's not used very heavily on their site, and the product only seems to be a few months old, so it could still be tentative, but it's a strange coincidence nonetheless.
Has anyone found similar products? Is there any merit for SMA technology? I don't see it implemented very often.
Chris