Hello there, I have a project idea for a DIY crystal puller machine that I’d like to begin, but I have never done anything with Arduino before.
My plan is to get a linear actuator and then attach a rotary motor to the end of the linear rod, next I was to control the speed of the rotor and the speed of the linear actuator.
Edit- the linear actuator pull rod length I’m going for is at least 6-8in. or 12in., really whatever equipment is cheaply available
The linear actuator needs to have a variable speed rate with 10 micrometer per second resolution ideally, and the rotor needs to have a variable speed resolution of 0.1RPM ideally.
I’ve watched several videos about setting up Arduino with linear actuators and whatnot before realizing that I need a WAY slower pulling and rotation rate than the manual speed controllers offer. And I don’t have thousands to spend on pre-fab actuators either lol- so this will be my first attempt at doing something with Arduino.
Does anyone have any advice on setting something like this up, code, components? I’d really appreciate some help with this, would be so cool to learn Arduino so that I can feel more confident about using it in other projects I have planned too.
In your free time get a copy of the Arduino Cookbook and read it cover to cover, that is how I learned about Arduino. Do any of the projects that look interesting. At that point your project will not be so complex.
Shouldn't be a problem. It's more a question of mechanical accuracy. Stepper can have 50k micro steps per rev and you can gear it down to your preference.
The simplest way to achieve such a low speed is with a lot of gearing. If you need precise speed control, you will also need a speed feedback (encoder etc), and control the speed. A stepper motor would be easier to control the speed, as long as you make step distance small enough.
The application is similar to astrography trackers, which need to move at a slow constant rate to track star movement.
If we assume that the stepper has 200 steps per rev, and the leadscrew has a pitch of 2mm, then that is 10um per step. With a gear ratio of 100:1, you could move the stepper at a reasonable 100 steps/sec and achieve a movement of 10um/sec.
Note that microsteps are not necessarily very accurate, and are really for smoothness of motion.
Is that continuous movement, or is that step by step? And do you need to stop the movement and do you need to reverse the movement without loosing the current position? I doubt anyone knows what a crystal puller is, do you have a picture?