I love playing with robotics — what hacker doesn’t? Servos, stepper motors, linear actuators, pistons… there are so many ways to move things around. It’s uncommon to see a miniature precision stepper-based linear actuator, though! Actuators this small can be very handy for a number of different hobbies and projects.
This custom-built linear actuator board would be an excellent match for people who are into modelling — whether it’s model train kits or model cities, a little movement can bring any design like that to life! And it’s small enough to easily hide away, with enough range of motion and torque to accomplish quite a lot of movement. It’s also fully compatible with many open-source software libraries for control, like the Arduino Stepper library. This makes it quite simple to set up and program for your application.
Because it’s based on a stepper motor paired with a dedicated stepper driver chip and a fine-pitch threaded rod, you can get exact movements that are repeatable. This makes it a good candidate for making small X-Y tables or other fixtures that can be used for CNC machines. Another good application would be making interactive toys, or adding additional features to RC cars/robots!
The seller Questwise Ventures seems quite keen on making miniature boards for all sorts of things, so be sure to check out the rest of their shop. But first, check out the demonstration video below to get an idea of just how small and precise the mechanism is!
