Automated Pop-up Kitchen Spice Rack

This is a simple Kitchen Automation project. A Firgelli Automation FA-400-12-18" stroke linear actuator was used to pop up this spice rack. Of course the top would typically be the granite square that was cut out originally, and the spice rack could be a coffee machine, microwave, TV, wine rack or anything else you wish to hide in your kitchen.

The actuator sits pointing upwards and as you can see the middle of the spice rack has a sort of hollow column, this is where the other end of the actuator fits inside. It's not required if you use the Firgelli Automations column lift which is a ready to go remote control lift mechanism.

This customer wanted to have the spice rack lift up from the Kitchen island. 1st thing they did was cut a square hole in the granite top, the granite maker can do that for you. Typically you would use another square piece to fill the hole so that when the rack drops the granite becomes flush with the top lid to look like a single piece of granite

The spice rack needs to have a hollow center so that the actuator shaft goes through the center and lifts the top, the bottom of the actuator is attached as shown below. the height is adjusted by propping up the base so that the limits of the actuator are such that when the actuator retracts and shuts off, the spice rack is fully closed.

To make it go up and down you need a 12vdc power source and a DPDT switch all available from Firgelli Auto. the actuators are all 2 wire and the power source is too, here is the wiring diagram for the switch.