Posted to News on 2nd Oct 2008, 17:05
Miniature electric actuators feature integral feedback
SMAC is launching its new CAL12 series of electric actuators, with a 12mm diameter and a stroke length of 10mm. They have been designed to offer a long life and more precise and repeatable force control and positioning, and are claimed to be the first linear motors to challenge conventional linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) devices.
This is a compact yet robust series, manufactured from high-grade stainless steel with a minimum wall thickness of 1.5mm. Due to their design and construction, cylinder acceleration of up to 10 'g' can be achieved, and they have been designed to offer a life expectancy of at least 100million cycles.
CAL12 series actuators are based on proprietary SMAC moving coil actuator (MCA) technology, which is covered by multiple patent applications. They are offered with a minimum force of 0.2N and a maximum force of 2N, and a choice of encoder resolutions from 5um down to 100nm to satisfy a variety of industrial, scientific, motion control and QC/measuring applications.
As with all SMAC actuators, the CAL12 series have the ability to enable free and independent control of velocity, position and force simultaneously. Further to this, the SMAC patented Soft-Land function is incorporated to allow delicate and controlled force when landing on fragile components. This also allows indexing and establishes a datum by finding the surface of the part and setting that point to zero. Set-up and re-calibration are therefore simple.
The CAL12 series also give 100 per cent data feedback of all operations as standard, meaning that no external switches or sensors are required to detect cylinder movement or position. This enables a reduction in external wiring and significantly reduces cost. The electric cylinders also have a low power consumption of 1.8A at 24V, making them highly energy efficient. Competitive pricing starts from US$750.00 with the 5um encoder as standard.
