See this article in the latest issue of Machine Design to read a bit about tiny, but strong and very precise motors that use bending “fingers” or undulating ribbons of piezoelectric materials to move their armatures linearly or rotate them with nanometer precision, and/or with several hundreds of newtons of force.
If they don’t cost too much, my first impression is that they sound like an “oh so sweet” linear or rotary motor technology for a Vex Robotics kit to use.
http://machinedesign.com/ContentItem/72955/TinyMotorsMakeBigMove.aspx
The manufacturer that is featured in the article is MicroMo Electronics:
[www.micromo.com
Blake](www.micromo.com)
wow. these things are amazing. it would be cool to buy one, if they weren’t 792 dollars each.
$792!!! :eek: Yikes!
Maybe mass production and an application that is only moderately stressful might allow the OEM(s) to lower that price.
Also, maybe the OEM(s) that makes them would like to sell them cheaply to a generation of new users who would sing their praises to all their employers in a few years?
Factory seconds are probably good enough for our use. I’m pretty sure that most Vex bots don’t need nanometer or microradian precision from their linear actuators and rotary motors.
Blake
yeah. i’d have to agree with that. the amount of wobble in the axles/bolts is more than a nano-anything.