I purchased 2 of your LACT2P-12V-20 linear actuators that have position feedback and I need help figuring out what I need to complete the project I’m working on. I’m planning on using these to control 2 different aerodynamic aids on a race car. They will be stressed with high air pressure so I need a circuit that can deliver the max current they may draw. Also, I need to control them so that I can rotate a pot for each on the dash to set the actuators to one of several possible specific positions using a 12V source. The system has to be able to hold settings with the battery disconnected frequently. I’m a mechanical guy with little circuit design experience. Any suggestions?
I can set up a rotary pot to provide descrete analog signal voltages from the pots on the dash. What should I purchase from you to compare the voltage and control the actuator position? Recommendations?
Hello. Our jrk 12v12 can do most of what you want. Basically, you would configure the Input Mode to be “Analog”, set the Feedback Mode to be “Analog” and connect both potentiometers, a power supply, and the linear actuator motor to it.
The jrk would take the voltage from your dashboard, do some simple scaling to convert it to a Target value, and then it would use a PID algorithm to try to make your actuator go to the corresponding position. Unfortunately, the input scaling setting on the jrk are relatively simple. The target will be a monotonic function of the input, with two different linear regions and an optional dead zone between them where the target is constant. If you change the “Degree” setting, you can change the linear regions to be quadratic or cubic instead. The jrk doesn’t have the ability to map arbitrary input voltages to arbitrary feedback voltages. Do you need that feature?
