That’s not always the case, of course. These custom-made linear actuators are a perfect example of when building your own wins. For a planned ball-juggling robot, [Harrison Low] found himself in ...

In a nutshell, tubular solenoids, like other linear solenoids, are open/close actuators for opening and closing mechanisms that develop a force in one direction when energized. The restoring force ...

The result is a gearless (and very quiet) linear actuator that controls like a stepper motor. While a tubular linear motor is at its heart a pretty straightforward concept, [Jeremy] found very ...