Dear All,

I am working on an application at the moment which is going down the path of a DC motor with position feedback whereas a 3 position solenoid could do the job (if they exist?). Anybody know of any solenoid manufacturers that do such 3 position solenoids in rotary and linear form?

Cheers,

Skeeb

 

What are you trying to do with this solenoid? Knowing that will help with suggestions.

 

Well we have an application which drops an arm in by a spring action but needs to be pulled back off with a cam type solution which has two backed off positions. One is not very far from the loaded position whereas the other requires a fair movement which is currently done by 180 degree rotation of the cam.

 

If your going to use a cam to lift the arm, a "snail cam" could work for you. In stead of the cam moving in a constant motion, a stepper motor could move it to the first position and the to the drop position. Or a "mutilated gear" or even a linear ratchet and pawl could be used as the drive on the snail cam.

http://www.technologystudent.com/cams/snail1.htm

http://www.roymech.co.uk/Useful_Tables/Cams_Springs/Indexing.html