[_45ow]

Something always fails. Was curious about the details, though. Actuators from the linked Patent:

  - F12-BC (W-Robit, Taiwan)
  - PAC-UGT040D (PBC Linear, Roscoe, Ill.)

Motors and servos:

  - BCH U04 (Schneider Electric, Palatine, Ill.)
  - LXM23A servo system (Schneider)
  - Modicon M256 Logic controller (Schneider)
  - SM23165DT (Moog Animatics, Santa Clara, Calif.)

That last motor is a NEMA 23 stepper and commonly used in 3D printers. I remember tweaking the current levels on it with a temperature gun until it was just at 40 C. These particular ones are rated for 85 C and have a high mean time between failure - over 20k hours of continuous operation. At lower (more normal) operation temperatures they can last 10-20 years.

Of course, there are always exceptions and lots can go wrong (that random failure, bird gets trapped in the mechanism?), but looks like they picked decent components.