I have been looking around the google to see if small scale winches existed (20kg [40lbs] or less load) but have yet to find an out of the box solution.
I have had an arduino for awhile but have yet to have a project that I thought I could use it for. I'm new to the arduino environment in general but have been excited to actually have a project to use it for.
To the point:
I have seen many mentions of "sail winch servos" around the forums but none (that I've read about) seem to be able to accomplish my task. I want to be able to pull some drapes open using a motor of some kind. A small winch was what came to mind first and I can't seem to get away from that paradigm so I'm not sure if there is another solution.
Since I don't have the materials for the actual drapes yet I am only guessing on max load. I would guess that I could be as low as 10lbs ? 5kg and as great as 40lbs ? 20kg. I have tall windows and the motor would be pulling at an up angle ? right to left.
Most of the sail winch servos that I found would not do a full rotation so I can imagine that they would be able to pull my drapes the distance that I need, (approx 4 ft). I suppose that I could create a larger diameter spool for the string/cable to wind onto and maybe work on a servo that can handle a 3.5x rotation. But would creating a bigger spool not increase the load? Might be mis-remembering some of my physics but I feel like it would.
So it seems like some sort of DC motor is likely in order but apparently I'm not good at googling for what I'm looking for. If I google DC winch motor I get motors for larger automotive winches. Or I just get servo results.
Once I get that figured out I will have to figure out a mechanism to tell the motor when to stop so as not to attempt to pull the drapes too far. But I'm sure there are many simple triggers that would work with the arduino.
Any help is very much appreciated.
Nathan