Hi,
I’ve got a Pololu Glideforce Light duty 5:1 linear actuator going into a JRK G2 24v13 motor controller.
I’ve applied the settings file provided by pololu, and wired according to the diagram (white=pot gnd; yellow=aux; blue=feedback in), and I get nothing when I control the motor target over USB.
I’ve used these actuators with the G2 a few times in the past, and looking at the graph I think that the feedback is not working. It’s all such an encapsulated system that I have no idea really where to start (i.e. if I had made the feedback pot etc myself I’d have a starting point for testing and debugging).
What should I do now? I struggle to believe it would be broken out the box, but I have no real ideas of what to do.
Occasionally when I set the target the motor comes to life, so it is definitely receiving power from my controller board.
Let me know! Nightmare deadline on this one!
Thanks.
UPDATE:
I realised I had another similar model of Glideforce linear actuator and it works perfectly out the box with same wiring, motor controller etc, so I’m guessing this unit was faulty from the start.
Do you have a support contact to process a refund on an international order - ie shipping will have to be covered by you guys? Also, do you know if this is common for your actuators to be faulty? I’m just wanting to know how common this is so that I always order extra for any job and return any broken ones to you.
Thanks
UPDATE 2:
Looking at the other (wokring) linear actuator, I’ve actually noticed that the pot has been poorly clocked - the feedback works sub optimatlly because of how the pot has been orientated when conencted to the mechanism.
I build my own linear actuators and other feedback systems, and this one has defintely not been properly setup at the point of manufacture. Luckily it doesn’t affect my use case this time, but it’s pretty poor. I must have used 40 or so of your actuators over the years, and several hundred JRK boards. I don’t know if this is just a bad batch or whether standards are slipping. You should pass this on to your team and have a look at it though.
Thanks.
Hello.
I am sorry to hear you are having problems with your Glidecorce actuator. What specific model of actuator are you having problems with?
I am not sure what you mean when you say the potentiometer is “poorly clocked”. What are the resistance values when the actuator is fully retracted and fully extended, and how does that compare to your other actuators?
Brandon
