Simple Linear Actuator Movement - Not Sure Where to Start

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1

Hello,

I am trying to create a very simple animatronic with just an up/down (conceal/reveal) movement. Think of it as a rabbit coming out of a magician’s hat. The rabbit is placed on some kind of rod that extends and contracts based on a set min/max height. I am not sure where to start, but my research pointed me to using a simple linear actuator to create the up/down movement.

Is there any advice on products you can offer to help me figure out how to do this as a battery-powered, light-weight, and inexpensive project?

If you need help understanding my goal, I’ll try attaching a rough sketch…just let me know what else I can provide. I’m looking forward to creating this (and hopefully, more) robot!

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Hey there, you want linear motion, there are a ton of ways to achieve that, but for the most part most powered moving things don’t do linear movement but instead do rotational movement (like motors), so if you are making the thing yourself you need a mechanism to convert rotational movement to linear movement.

I like to browse through this 507 mechanical movemets to get inspiration for how to move things. From your description what immediatly came to mind was like how old trains convert motor power to wheel movement but in reverse, kinda like this, apparently that is called “crank motion” . To make that you need a motor, a wheel, a connector, a movement block and a movement track.

Does that help?

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Hi there @ashtron and welcome to the forum

You are in the right direction! A linear actuator would be perfect for what you are trying to achieve. You can find many options here.

I would suggest a specific model but I don’t know the force and speed requirements of your project. Maybe if you give us more details we can help you with that.

For the rest of the project, I think this tutorial will come in handy:

For the power, you will need a battery, you can find some options here (in order to choose one I would need to know the power requirements of the actuator so you need to choose a model first). You can find a rocker switch here and the remote controller can be found here.

Good luck with your project, and let us know if you need more guidance :grinning:

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