Need Heavy Duty Solenoid

[matt_h]

I'm trying to build an interactive target setup for a shooting range at a friends house. The plates are ~20lbs and will be gravity activated. From my initial POC prototype, I don't think the 12v ones sold here will work. So I need a solenoid that is powerful enough to activate with a ~20 lb steel plate sitting on it, or at least release some sort of mechanical assembly that still requires a non-trivial amount of force. The basic setup looks like this.


||||||||||||||||||||| PLATE ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||0 <-Hinge
<--- ==Solenoid==

So the solenoid will release on activation, dropping the plate. Right now, I'm just going to use a remote, but sooner or later some sort of laser or motion sensor.

Any ideas on what size solenoid I need to run this are where I can source one? What would I need to power it... Car/Golf Cart Battery? Associated costs?

Weatherproofing the electronics is the next thing to worry about. If anything, I'll make it plug and play and you just remove it when you are done.

[tseary]

Instead of a solenoid, you might consider an electromagnetic door lock. Unlike a solenoid, these have no moving parts and use a magnetic field applied directly to a door (or plate) to keep it shut. I don't know how much they cost but it might be more than you want to spend. :/

Alternatively, you could add a lever between the plate and the solenoid so that less force is on the solenoid (see diagram).

Lever.png (1.26 KiB) Viewed 193 times