3d Printed Linear Actuator

This is a rack and pinion style linear actuator.

Due to the inclusion of a worm gear drive, the rack will maintain its position without the requirement to "hold" the gears static with a motor.

This requirement was necessary in the application it was intended (solar panel alignment drive)

This was designed in a combination of OpenSCAD and Blender.
The motor used is an RS-540. It could be driven with a smaller motor.

The motor is coupled to the worm gear via friction-fit. Some drilling my be required for the deliberately undersized hole for the motor shaft to couple with.

Print instructions

Currently printed in PETG (Urban Grey) with a .6mm nozzle.

Only one piece requires support which is the "cover".

This model uses the slider component from the RepRap Snappy for the rack alignment (https://reprap.org/wiki/Snappy attrib: RevarBat).