Small Linear Actuator for Hobby Project

Did you try asking the vendor? It can't cost more than $20 to ship to the States. What's your time worth?

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Did you try asking the vendor? It can't cost more than $20 to ship to the States. What's your time worth?

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

It does cost a lot more, maybe because of fuel cost. My sister forgot a few items last time she was here. Just a few lbs, nothing major or expensive. The post office wanted a whopping $40 for the cheapest method of transportation.

O-o-o-ouh? You use the USPS? I never ship anything I can't afford to lose via USPS!

...Jim Thompson

Don't overlook automotive door lock actuators... John Ferrell W8CCW

One reason is due to their no longer offering surface (shipload) transport anymore -- it's all via air, which of course is noticeably more expensive.

I've often wondered if this move was due to their wanting higher dollar average transactions or if U.S. culture has become so fast-paced that there simply wasn't any demand anymore even at the lower price...

This happen to you often?

Bwuahahahahaha!

Still on a car theme, scrap 'Headlight levelling positioners'. Motor driven servo, linear 1cm stroke. Actuator position tracks a manually adjusted 10k pot. It's a complete servo system!. Just needs a 12V supply.

I have servo 'd car seats... probably 6" of travel ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Well, I have had good luck with the USPS so far. If it ain't urgent I even have Digikey ship the stuff USPS. BTW the private carriers wanted princely three-digit sums. More money than the few clothes were worth.

Yep :-(

No idea but this would be the perfect time for the mainstream shipping lines to wake up and offer surface freight deals.

Their product looks pretty slick but you could: Build it

Piece of threaded rod and follower nut. Small motor and some plastic tubing for couplers.

I used that in the 60's for the rudder on an RC boat.

Not a hope in hell. They're not set up for small shipments- the actual sea shipment cost is cheap (particularly on a weight basis) but there are 'nickel and dime' extra costs that add up something like $100 per shipment. It's surprisingly fast, maybe 10 days from Asia to the west coast.

Sometimes if there is a large immigrant population you'll see deals by sea to the old country (for example, the Carribean islands around here), for domestic stuff, cars and that sort of thing.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

In L.A. there is a large German immigrant population so there are ads in the German-Californian paper. But it doesn't work when you live 500 miles from there because you must deliver to their dock.

There are small package deals in some places already. One poster in a German NG moved to Paraguay where there are many German retirees. He has some deal that allows AFAIK one two-kilogram parcel per month from any German address to Asuncion (the capital) for a flat fee of 100 Euros a year or so. So his sister puts all the magazines she read in there every month and ships it to the freight company which then compiles all the Paraguay parcels for freighter transport. Much cheaper than a regular overseas package. No such deals (yet) out here :-(

Those can usually only be found in Europe, not so much in the US where Phil lives. Plus they are really slow. When I rented a truck over there in March and had a ton of stuff loaded up I wanted to scoot the headlights down. Thought it didn't work until my German co-pilot told me "Just wait, it'll take several seconds before you see the beam moving down".

Roger that

All electronics, and Electronics Goldmine has seatbelt positioners (cable drive), Door actuators, and even some mirror positioners (pan-tilt) - from time to time

Is the need hobby or production? Easy enough to find a piece of nylon, tap it for a thread and use threaded rod in a channel or square tube. I even see motor driven linear potentiometers popping up on the surplus market.

manually

down".

Yes, the slowness though is actually a useful feature. High speed motor coupled to a high reduction gearbox gives a helluva linear push and all in a small unit. Make excellent remote pan/tilt positioners for video cams but moot if unavailable your side of the waters.

Yeah, but with automotive stuff I'd be careful. Since Lopez every tenth of a penny is being squeezed. So if they figure that the headlights will be adjusted an average of 500 times over the life of a car the motor might be calculated to a lifetime in the single digit hours.

Back in my alternator regulator days (mid '60's), I had a test stand that would run 20 alternators at a time... GM alternators would die of bearing failure at the equivalent of ~55,000 miles, just like they had a built-in clock ;-)

...Jim Thompson