Re: Door Latch Actuators

[Frank Pittelli <frank-at-rctankcombat.com>]

adt22-at-drexel.edu wrote:
 >
> If anyone is interested in trying out some of those door latch 
> actuators I may place an order. I found a guy on ebay that is selling
> them for $1.60 ea (ebay item 5719975296). I'll find out what
 > shipping would be for a bunch of them and I can send a bunch down
 > to MD for further distribution. Frank, any idea on how these
 > compare to the ones you were looking at?
> 

They should work fine running at either 12v or 18v to pull even the 
strongest triggers.  I'm going to order a couple from Parts Express to 
check them out.  Even though they're a little more expensive ($4 each), 
it's nice to have a couple of suppliers.

Even though you'll pay a little more for shipping, I'd only order 4 or 5 
from the Ebay source at first to make sure they work the way we want 
them to.  My workshop is littered with lots of "great deal" items that 
were purchased in bulk only to discover that they didn't do the job. 
(Luckily, if you model long enough and keep working on new things, 
eventually some of those white-elephants find a home ;-)

If they work, we can always go back and order more.

        Frank P.

PS. For everyone trying to figure out why we're talking about door latch 
actuators, John's latest artillery piece (Pak 75 ... pictures to be 
posted soon) used one of them to pull the gun trigger.  It worked 
flawlessly all weekend, so over the winter we will be experimenting more 
with them to see how well they fit into turrets.   At a couple bucks 
each, they represent an inexpensive and (we think) reliable electronic 
trigger that can be easily fired using a servo and a micro-switch, or an 
Anvilus circuit.