Nitinol Actuators by Miga Technologies LLC
Using Nitinol or Flexinol to replace Solenoids
All of the actuators below can be used to actuate solenoids. An SMA powered solenoid can be many times smaller and lighter than an elecotro-magnet powered solenoid. SMA powered solenoids will also use a small fraction of the power.
Solenoids are much heavier than nitinol actuators for comparable force output. Solenoids are also ON/OFF devices, and do not have speed, force, or position control. All of which are possible with nitinol actuators. Nitinol actuators also produce a constant force throughout the entire stroke, while the output force of a solenoid drops dramatically after the first 10% of motion
High Force Valve Actuator
This prototype actuator was designed to provide 24 pounds of force and 3/8" of stroke. There is a U-shaped Nitinol wire actuator on each side of the PCB (only one is currently installed), and they operate on a shared linkage. The SMA wire used here was 0.020"...
Solid State Pump or Valve Actuator / Valve Controller
An embedded coil, 12 layer spiral as shown, can be used to move a magnet which could be used to create a very small solid state pump (for air or liquid) or valve system arrays. Using standard printed circuit board (PCB) more than 1,000 of such devices can be printed...
Solid State Submersible Solenoid Actuator Operating Under Water
Operating at 1/3 Hz to 3,300 Hz using an H-Bridge driver and an Arduino Uno operating at 12 Volts. This demonstrated the ability to operate in water and shows that the water cools the device enough to operate at high speed and high force.
Pulley Valve Nitinol Actuator
This is a high force linear actuator with a single SMA wire wound around pulleys to provide high force. Pulley Valve Actuator Test Clockwise 90deg turn 230 Newtons Pulley Valve Actuator Clockwise and Counterclockwise turns, 15 pound lift, 64 watts of power input Close...
Nitinol Pneumatic Cylinder Replacement
This long stroke, high speed, prototype SMA actuator was designed for Sony to remove DVD's that did not pass quality control from an assembly line. Mineral oil is used in the body of this actuator to enhance cooling of the Nitinol. This actuator features 8" of 0.010"...
Haptic Force Feedback using a Wireless Solenoid
This video illustrates how a thin film force sensitive resistor can provide haptic feedback through the use of printed coils and a fixed magnet. 1.5 mm thin printed coils are energized when force in the resistor exceeds a given threshold. That causes the resistor and...
Center Post Rail Gun Actuator
Twelve layer printed coils are used to launch a small Neodymium Iron Borate magnet. We use short 10 ms pulses in the coil at 30 Volts.
Nitinol Force Multiplier Pulley System in Mineral Oil
Pre Mineral Oil Valve Operation at 60VAC (3.3 amps) in air. Operation of Valve in Mineral Oil 70VAC 23˚C at 5s Operation of Valve in Mineral OIl 70VAC 3˚C CW CCW
Solenoid Coil Speaker Plate mounted on a guitar
This video shows five printed coils mounted on the tone bridge of a guitar. The audio is actually being played through the speaker coils and magnets are driving the acoustics of the guitar. Essentially this is a self-playing guitar.
Wireless Solenoid Haptic Feedback Engine: Click In, Click Out
Initial prototype of the Wireless Solenoid Haptic Feedback Engine. More refined version of the Haptic Feedback Engine which feels very much like the trackpad of a MacBook Pro. We discovered that you could also use the engine as a speaker for music.