An interesting motor

Squiggle motors:
[www.newscaletech.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2008 03:58PM by nophead.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Clever.

I ran across this technology quite some time ago. It's fascinating stuff, though, iirc, they want a very pretty penny for them. The other problem is the service life of the device.

[www.newscaletech.com]

Take a look and see what you think. It struck me as at least a magnitude less than what we could live with.

Neat. You could make a macro-sized one with three solenoids, a threaded rod and a slightly-larger diameter tube with internal corrugations that matched the pitch of the rod. The solenoids would be sequenced to hula the tube around the rod.

... in the last years there were several types of piezo-motors - different inchworm-types, piezo-legs and 'elliptec'-oszillators.

I experimented with some inchworm-drives and built some micro-(and nano-)-positioning stages with 'piezolegs' and ferrofluidic actuators.

The drives were capable of 20mm travel range, accuracies of 0,1 microns per single step or single nanometers in 'bending-mode', but you have to apply a measurement system capable of same accuracy, or it didn't have exact repeatability.

So we sold 3-axis-positioning systems with 20mm travel in each direction, 4mm/s speed and an accuracy of 0,1 microns for 'microscope-controlled manual positioning' with a joystick for nearly 3000 Euros.

When combined with a measurement system capable of 0,1 microns too for closed-loop, this 3-axis-system would be more than 8000 Euros!

So this types of motors are nice for moving micro-parts and -tools in the working-area of a microscope, but for serious working in this dimensions it's only the 'motor' - for real applications you have to add three to four times the money for the scales ...

Viktor

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2008 05:14PM by Viktor.