Multichannel pulse high-current driver of magnetic actuator

Magnetic linear actuators are useful in many areas. Their significant advantage is the ease of control by regulating the current, but on the other hand, high electrical power is required to obtain a large continuous force, acceleration and stroke from a device with small dimensions. In this article, we present a complete open-source system consisting of simple movable iron magnetic actuators, a four-channel controller and dedicated software. The graphical user interface makes it easy to design the sequence of piston strokes, including time of the start, duration of the movement and force for each stroke separately. The controller supplies high intensity impulses, thanks to which it is possible to obtain high force, acceleration and stroke from small-sized coils with a voltage that is safe for use. The system was originally developed as a reagent syringe driver to control the rapid mixing process to study the kinetics of enzymatic reactions. However, this driver may also be useful in a number of other scientific and non-scientific applications.