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Honestly, I'm pretty new to robotics and haven't had a chance to mess around with transistors. I was able to find some videos on solenoids and relays and that made it easy for me to get something up and running quickly.

The latency wasn't an issue though. Even on expert mode on TTFATF, I still had to program a delay to time everything up. But that's great to know for future projects if I need a super low-latency solution.

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I don’t have massive experience but about 25 years ago I purchased a unit using transistors to power large stepper motors (probably a similar style of load to a solenoid - inductive with quick on/off) and it worked well, and didn’t get too hot. But don’t ask me what transistor tech it used, or the name of the company selling it!

But if you don’t need the response time or longivity then relays are probably much simpler to set up so a good choice.

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