Tractorsport Flowbench Forum Archive

Posted: **Tue Mar 16, 2004 3:21 pm**

I am looking to find some small electric motors/actuators to open/close the gate valve I'm using as a depression controller and to slide the plate around to change from blow to suck and vice versa on my vacuum supply.
I have seen them on something but can't recall what it was.
They use a small reversable geared DC electric motor and an acme thread with a nut on it.
I was thinking of setting them up with a momentary toggle switch on the depression controller and a switch for intake/exhaust with limit switches (microswitches) that stops the motor when it moves from one side to the other.
The idea is not to have any knobs to turn or levers to pull just some switches to flick.

Posted: **Tue Mar 16, 2004 8:13 pm**

One way I had considered to do something similar, was to adapt a vacuum booster chamber off a brake booster. If it is around ten inches diameter, there might be something like eighty pounds of push/pull force at thirty inches of water pressure.

You can use air pressure to open and tightly seal internal doors, or giant poppet valves to control internal airflow direction inside your bench. Some toggle switches and small air solenoids could direct air pressure, and connect the booster diaphragm right across full blower pressure.

I never actually used this idea though, but I did test a booster modified as a high force actuator. It was unbelievably powerful. Instead I designed my latest bench for flow in one direction only, with a suction test hole, and a different blow test hole in the top of the bench. It is far simpler to construct, and there is nothing to leak or go wrong.

Tractorsport Flowbench Forum Archive

Electric motor for depression adjustment - Cheap way out of it?