About:
If you're into building whimsicle things here and there for hobby or for prototype testing and you need a lateral force for pushing and pulling like the cylendars on a back-hoe, but you don't want to do it with neumatics or hydraulics, then you have no choice but to do it electrically by translating your motors rotational energy to linear energy with a linear actuator. Unfortunately there is no cost range for these anywhere on the market! No matter how small or how large, good luck finding ANY for under $100.
This is why I make my own! For a fraction of the price (around $20), and about an hour of machining/assembly, I can put together a DIY version with comparable tollerances. Sure it's ugly and a lot of the moving parts are exposted, but it's solid, functional, very strong, and most importantly, cheap! To make them you just need a motor, like the cheapies on eBay, a block of aluminum, some radial bearing, threaded rod, a coupling nut, a push rod, some finishing nails, and k'nex gears (because again, they are the cheapest).
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Direct Drive Mini:
Here is the first type created, it's direct drive making it the most compact. It has the fewest parts so it's the quickest to assemble too. Using a 300rpm gear motor with 10-24 threaded rod gives a good speed to strength ratio.
Enhanced Mini:
This is an upgraded revision to the direct drive actuator above. It's got aproximately 2.5 times the strenght, but then of course is 2.5 times slower.
Enhanced Mini with Bearings:
This version was load tested at 43 lbs! It lifted the bag effortlessly.
Enclosed:
This is the completely enclosed model, it uses pvc pipe instead of aluminm. The motor is from a black and decker cordless screw driver whose rechargable battery died. This one could be good for tracking solar panels, rotating a satellite dish, or some other out door application.
