James Bruton well known for his YouTube channel which sees him creating a wide variety of huge 3D printed robots and electronic devices has this week published a new video looking at building an affordable lower power linear actuator using little Arduino hardware and programming. Check out the video below to learn more about the project that involves a little 3D printing and Arduino coding which is available for you to download directly from GitHub if you fancy building your very own linear actuator.
An Arduino Uno has been used in the projects for controlled using pins 2 and 3 as interrupts to ensure correct rotation and thus linear travel sensing. Correct movement is facilitated with a pair of PID loops to regulate both the position and velocity, even under differing load and battery conditions.
“Building a Lower-power Linear Actuator with Arduino: quite a few people have asked me about scaling down openDog to make it lighter and cheaper, so I thought I’d discuss the options in this video. I’m using a motor with an encoder and an Arduino Uno to control position and velocity. “
For more information on more projects by James jump over to his official YouTube channel by following the link below. The code is also available via the GitHub link below.