Spotted in the Make: Forums:
Need to do some heavy lifting of the physical kind, but only have some wimpy servo motors on hand? Why not follow Antonb’s directions to Hack your Servo, and turn it into a powerful linear actuator. The instructions are a little tricky to follow, however the basic idea is to use the servo motor as a high-torque gearbox, which is then used to turn a screw to raise or lower your load. Using this method, he claims to be able to lift a 10kg load, which is pretty impressive!











Someone should really direct this person to a website on simple machines. He’ll be entralled for weeks.
I’m guessing that is a linear actuator, not a linear accelerator. The latter would be a very impressive thing to make out of a hobby servo…
Ha! thanks for catching that one, and look forward to the homebrew linear accelerator article in our upcoming DIY Nuclear Physics magazine issue
This is exactly the sort of thing I like to see on Make.
It might or might not be absolutely incredible and life changing, but it’s a nice little hack and sparks other ideas.
The LED above my head lights up when I see stuff like this. (It used to be a light bulb…)
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