Tag: stepper motor driver

As the core component for controlling stepper motors, stepper motor drivers play an important role in the field of automation. Their precise position control capability and relative simplicity of control make them the preferred choice in many applications, driving innovation and development in a wide range of industries.

A stepper motor driver is a key electronic device used to control the motion of a stepper motor. It achieves precise positional and angular control by precisely delivering current to the individual windings of the stepper motor, causing it to rotate in predetermined steps. Stepper motor drivers typically use advanced Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) technology to convert digital signals into current pulses suitable for motor operation, resulting in highly controllable motion.

The Stepper motor driver is an important part of controlling the rotation of the stepper motor, which converts the control signal into a current signal to drive the stepper motor to rotate according to the precise angle. Stepper motors are widely used in many fields, such as printers, CNC machine tools, robots, etc. ATO.com will introduce the working principle of stepper motor driver in detail.

A stepper motor is an actuator that converts electrical pulses into angular displacement. When the stepper driver receives a pulse signal, it drives the stepper motor to rotate a fixed angle in the set direction, and its rotation runs step by step at a fixed angle. The angular displacement can be controlled by controlling the number of issued pulses, so as to achieve the purpose of controlling the displacement. At the same time, the speed and acceleration of the motor rotation can be controlled by controlling the pulse frequency, so as to achieve the purpose of speed regulation. The rotor inside the servo motor is a permanent magnet.

Stepper motor is an open-loop control motor which transforms electric pulse signal into angular displacement or linear displacement.  However, there are some errors occuring between the actual angle stepper motor rotates and the theoretical step distance. There are some certain errors from one step to any other step, but the step number of each cycle of the stepper motor is the same. In the case of no step loss, the step error is not accumulated for a long time.
How to prevent step loss with stepper motor as the above mentioned? First of all, we need to know why stepper motor losses step?

1. The rotor acceleration is slower than the rotating magnetic field of the stepper motor.
2. The average speed of the rotor is higher than the average rotating speed of the stator magnetic field.
3. The load inertia of stepper motor is large.
4. The stepper motor produces the resonance.