Anyone here dealt with something similar?
Hey everyone, I’ve been working on a small automated door project for my home workshop and I’m trying to figure out the ideal stroke length and force for a micro linear actuator. The door only needs to move about 2.5 inches and doesn’t weigh much — maybe around 2 lbs. I don’t want to overkill it with something too powerful, but I also don’t want it to struggle or burn out. Anyone here dealt with something similar?
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Yeah, actually, I ran into the same dilemma when I was building a compact camera slider last fall. It only required about 3" of movement, and I initially went with a 100N actuator thinking “more power, better,” but that ended up being overkill — jerky movement and it even strained my mount. After trial and error, I switched to a 15N model with a 50mm stroke and it worked way smoother and more controlled. Honestly, matching force and stroke length to your use case is way more important than max specs. I’d recommend checking out this section here electric linear actuator: https://www.progressiveautomations.ca/collections/linear-actuators — they break down stroke options pretty clearly and you can even filter by force rating. What helped me most was knowing the exact load + stroke, then working backward to avoid overspending or overpowering. Hope that helps!