I like some of your concepts Shadewalker! I really want to do a lifting roof on my build, trying to keep it short overall, so only place to go is up.
I was looking at various actuators/truck box lifts. Do you mind sharing the ones you went with? Are you going to use any kind of track system to keep things aligned?
I went with:
See all of our actuators. Many stroke, speed, and force options available as well as custom linear electric motors to suit every application.
www.firgelliauto.com
Specifically >
https://www.firgelliauto.com/products/optical-sensor-actuators
As they have the feedback option, so with their control board system, a person can tie up to four actuators, synchronize them once, and then the controller will take care of ensuring they all move as one thereafter.
During design/drawing phase, I considered using drawer slides or some track guide system to keep the boxes in line. In the end, I ..kinda forgot (Or lazy) to put them in, and assembled the boxes together. At least on my assembly, no guides are needed, as the outer shell cannot exactly go anywhere else. I screwed around fabbing my own brackets, but geez, they sell them for only $7 or $12. and I spent waaaaay more time then that futzing around making mine. (time=$$$)
My next box, I'll make myself buy theirready made bits. HAW!
I definitely enjoy the extra head space. (Both my previous designs were 4ft total height,..so being able to stand up in my current rig is...GREAT!
>>Current box is 54" ceiling height when compact, and when expanded, a 6ft tall person has nice head room.The expansion moves 24" via the actuators. I mounted them on 7" tall risers, so thats one way to get extra height.
I made the outer shell be the movable portion, so there is no chance of water ingress whether its up or down. I just gotta make sure I check the outside before dropping it, as if my AC is deployed, it will hang up on that. ( Nearly bent a actuator on that one, however, I got lucky with only a scratch on its arm.) >>The box started to skew when the AC stopped its side from sliding.
Anyhoo, have fun with your build, and definitely go for that head room!!
