This is the setup that I am trying to make:
Can anyone please recommend a motor controller for this setup, that requires no encoding?
Any controller I can think of
will not pass the full 12v to the actuator from the PSU. Meaning, there will be some amount of voltage drop. An L298 could drive your actuator, however, I would suggest a 14 or 15 volt PSU. When you say no encoding, I have to imagine you mean no microcontroller, and, therefore no code writting. That is possible, but, you will then have to come up with an analog circuit that will probably require a handful of ICs to do what a simple microcontroller and some code could do. I am imagining a 556 dual timer, some passives (resistors, caps), a couple transistors, and the L298 could probably do what you want. I am no EE and therefore just kinda “shooting from the hip” on what kind of circuit you would need. I don’t know if maybe a flip-flop would be better/more useful. I am not going to do the research to figure this out, because, I would just drop in a Pro mini with the L298 and be done.
What about a Dagu Mini
What about a Dagu Mini Driver as a motor controller? It has a built in dual FET H bridge at 2.5 amps per side.
https://sites.google.com/a/rocketbrandstudios.com/rocket-brand-studios/store/brains/minidriver
A $16 solution seems pretty cheap.
Regards,
Bill
I second
I think all you really need is a center-off DPDT switch. Momentary would be best. You run power to the center pins, cross-connect the outside pins and then output from either set of outside pins. Thats it. At the end of the day, the actuator is just a DC motor. Beyond that, I would assume most actuators will have internal stops i.e. will stop when it gets to full travel.