Me (on the phone to 6 different makers of voice coil linear actuators)
Hello, I work at the university of Akron, I need a stock linear motor to move a 5 gram load one cm in N milliseconds time.
REP or Marketing guy (never could get to a engineer) Will you be building the driver?, We dont usually supply drivers"
Me, yes I can build the driver.
Them : do you have experience building drivers for inductive loads?
Me, yes I have used high speed closed loop galvanometer scanners for laser positioning for years, and just built a cap based linear sensor with 1 nm resolution.
Them, Ok, sounds like you can build a driver/
Them, how do you know your idea will work?
Me, we have a prototype built on a speaker voice coil, but they dont hold up under the strain.
How many will you need?
Me, 5 to 10 to prototype with and then the company we are doing the research for will build gazzillions.
Them, we'll call our main office and have a engineer review your specifications, and we will ge back to you tomarrow.
ME (setting by phone for days) never hears a ring
what the heck am I doing wrong?
I get this with just about every vendor that has a web site , only to call them to find out all the listed products are vaporware and that marketing people seem to be in charge, cant even get a direct line to a engineer,Oh and thats if the phone number has a rare human on it, most sales organizations hide behind a voicemail system and claim they will call you back asap, we never hear from them! EVEN IF I FIB AND SAY I'M WITH XYZ CORP AND WANT A 100,000 pieces!. HOW DO YOU MAKE A PROFIT IF YOU DONT MAKE A SALE ? I cant order parts unless someone tells me a part number and terms!!!! ITS MADDENING.
Steve Roberts (still looking for a fast voice coil!)