Spring- mass system witn a resonant mode in the middle of your frequency range, use the reference coil of your lvdt as the driving coil for the solenoid core, the CT sense coil provides position feedback. Drive method of the coil may be a tradeoff. PWM would give the best efficency, but AM signal would probably make the LVDT demodulation easier. Sounds very do-able in the price range mentioned.
Am rather familiar with them; did many a cone replacement in daze of yore - along with the sets of 3 shims for centering.
Tear apart an old hard drive..
Not everything needs to be quantifiable. For a big and expensive project development you'd definitely want to nail down your specifications as much as possible to minimize a costly redesign. For things like communication equipment that have to interface with existing technology, the numbers pretty much define your project. But this hypothetical gizmo is for an artist, so knowing that the force needed is "pretty small" tells me enough. You build a mechanism that can overcome its own inertia by a large enough margin to make you confident that it'll work and then go out and test it. Is it really cost and time effective for me to go out and try to measure this force just to provide a number? I doubt it. I could be wrong, but that's a chance I'll take.
Besides, I'm not asking anyone here to design this thing for me. Just for general ideas. Thanks for everyone's suggestions.
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