controlling 4 linear 1000mm actuators, any ideas?

[Boyan Silyavski]

Hi,
long time no see. :beer:

Want to build a campervan or a trailer and have to make a lifting bed and probably lifting roof. Both using 4 cheap 12 or 24v linear actuators 1000mm travel at around 100euro each
I have seen in YouTube the bed build using 4 actuators, but i want to do sth more complicated like hard folding roof trailer, and i dont have it clear what happens if one motor is not working and the other 3 continue to push? I would like somehow to avoid that???

Basically i would like to do something like that and insure against failing actuator somehow but still using cheap actuator . Any ideas?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pISQgx1R9kk

[m_c]

Hiwin actuators can be paired, so they move synchronously.

We had a few vehicles with a dual system at work, however I could never find out any information about how the system worked. The bodybuilder could fix them when they went wrong, but they wouldn't reveal any details so we could fix them.

[JohnHaine]

Measure the currents in the motors and stop if one of them goes too low or high? Have a rotation sensor such as a magnet+hall effect on each motor and sense if one stops? Accelerometer to detect if slope of thing being lifted changes by more than certain amount?

[Boyan Silyavski]

From what i have found they could be found with hall sensors and there are devices that permit to couple 2 together. I will need 4 coupled together somehow. Using some simple controller. So still looking for a way to do it