Most lift methods are just too powerful for your purpose. Visit the ideas on the [Chicken Coop Door page as my suggestion favors using the 3v battery operated BBQ motor. Maybe use lines on all four corners raised by winding.
A scissor type lift is what I had been planning to use. I am using an arduino for this project as it will be doing multiple steps just not the lifting.
A small stepper with a lead screw and captive nut should work. There are much smaller versions available of a setup like this one: https://www.pololu.com/product/2268
Most of these ideas won’t work if he needs to lift something 8" but only has 10" in which to package it. The lift would need to be collapsible to 2" when down, that’s probably why he’s thinking of a scissor lift. That’s also why I suggested the balloon: you can build an inexpensive bellows-type lift using a long balloon. Balloons are essentially free and aquarium air pumps are dirt cheap. The main difficulty is constraining the motion in a vertical direction.
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Further, given enough horizontal space, you can use leverage to get height from a small balloon. i.e., the balloon only needs to inflate to a height of 1" which takes a trivially low amount of pressure. A lever with 1:8 mechanical advantage will then move 8" at the far end. Sure, it will move over an arc and not a straight line, but that can be fixed easily. It will certainly lift a few ounces.
It may be a duplicate idea but the drawing helps. I was thinking that the leadscrew would have to push a rod that would actually move the load. That means you need enough room for both the length of the screw and the actuating rod. I never thought of offsetting it to the side of the platform like that!
Mee_n_Mac:
I was going to suggest a concept but then realized it was a duplicate of jremingtons. Here’s a pic to illustrate it.
[attachment=0]ThreadedRodLift.jpg[/attachment]
The green platform goes up/down as the threaded rod revolves.
This [YouTube Video has some interesting stuff, like the rubber bands to help lift. Remember Erector Sets, might come out ahead purchasing one?
Christopher[/quote]
This is what I am looking for but with only one level. I will make a drawing when I have time tonight.
I am looking for a stepper or geared motor that has opposite directional moving shaft as well. One shaft moves clockwise and the other shaft moves counter clockwise at the same rotation as the other shaft at the same time. Unless I can get a stepper and scissor lift working with a single shaft.
I had built a prototype out of popsicle sticks but I could not get the current shaft mounted correct to squeeze the fulcrums together.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUb85goys3Y)
And some additional hardware. I’ll need spacers and some kind of mount/loose bracket to allow one side of the rod to spin freely while the other is bring the lift together.
