[Music] hello everyone I'm here today to show you
how you can control a linear actuator with just a simple switch there's a lot of different switches
out there so you're going to need to know a little bit about them to find the right one to control
the linear actuator. it's probably best to go with a double pole double throw switch that's a
switch that has two internal circuits and two on positions this will allow us to flip the voltage
direction to the linear actuator allowing us to extend
and retract it, you may also want to go
with the switch that has an on-off-on position this will allow us to first drive forward a second
drive back and also stop the linear actuator. you can't find switches that are just on on but that
won't allow us to stop the linear actuator it'll simply drive it forward and drive it back another
aspect of the switch that you'll want to consider is whether the switch is momentary or sustaining
or non momentary. a momentary switch snaps is back to the c
enter once you release it so see
as this switch here I press it down police it snaps back to the middle position a sustaining
or non-momentary switch locks into position so I press down it stays in that position and then
I have to press it back to move it to the middle your choice of switch will completely depend based
on your personal preference and application but I would probably recommend for shorter stroke
lengths you might want to go with a momentary switch as you may want to shut the
switch off as
soon as you release but for longer stroke where you're gonna have a few minutes to fully extend
your actuator sustaining type might be a good option. finally you're gonna want to look at the
specifications of your switches these are include things like size life expectancy and electrical
properties but probably most importantly the power rating your power rating will be given in terms
of an amperage and voltage and listed as a DC or a value these switches here are all AC swit
ches
meaning they're rated for an AC voltage but they can still be used with DC voltages but they're
rated values will be much smaller roughly 10% but that's not a hard rule it's important to consider
the power rating because if you do overload your switch it will shorten the life and even cause
immediate failure if you ever feel like your momentary switch is sticking into an on position
that's probably meaning that you're overloading your switch. once you have chosen the switch
that's rig
ht for you, connecting wires to the linear actuator is fairly straightforward as you
see on this switch there's gonna be six connectors and you can either connect the actuator to the
bottom and top pairs of the connectors flipping the positive and negative leads for the bottom
pair or connect the power supply to the bottom and top pairs of connectors flipping the positive
and negative leads again for the bottom pair these two wiring setups functionally do the same thing
they allow for the p
olarity of the voltage to be flipped depending whether you're pressing forward
or back and allows us to extend and retract our linear actuator so now I'm going to set it
up and show you guys a quick demonstration so I have everything wired up I'm using the 12
volt DC wall power adapter to power my linear actuator but you can use whatever you need for
your application as you can see I've connected the power supply to the outside connectors of
my switch notice that I flipped the positive and
negative lead for the bottom connectors and
I've connected the linear actuator to the middle connections you can solder these connections if
you like but I'm just using these clips in this demonstration once everything's wired up safely
you should be good to go and there going to to move and that's how you control a linear
actuator with just a simple switch all the products that you've seen in this demonstration
and much more can be found at FIRGELLIAuto.com
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