Linear Actuators

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

But you don't really see or interact with lead screws very often, and it's not something that's already prevalent in FRC... all that combines to make it something that doesn't really come to mind when designing a robot.

When we used one to lift our robot in 2010 (our best year ever), people acted like it was magic and we were rather amazed at the number of people amazed by the mechanism. Many teams just don't even consider them, and a lack of familiarity may well be part of it.

Another part of it, though, is that pneumatics do a very similar job, don't stall and release magic smoke, and come in sufficient variety that if you're already using them (and thus have the compressor, etc already on-board), they're a better choice.

Lead screws are used in industry primarily for fine control, while FRC robots have to complete gross-control tasks. In 2010 it made sense for us because we had no other pneumatics on the robot--why add another system just for one mechanism? But if you're already using them, why use a slow mechanism specialized for fine control to execute tasks that don't require fine control?