Tag: stepper motor

Stepper motor is an actuator transforming electric pulse into angular displacement. Popularly, when receiving a pulse signal, the stepper motor will rotate a fixed angle (namely"stepping angle") according to the direction set for the stepper motor. The angular displacement volume can be controlled by controlling the pulse number to achieve the purpose of positioning accurately. In the meantime, the rotational velocity and acceleration of motor can be controlled by controlling the pulse frequency to achieve the purpose of speed control.

It depends on specific application situation, and to put it in a simple way: Nature of load (for example, vertical load or horizontal load), requirements of torque, inertia, speed, accuracy and acceleration and deceleration, requirements of upper control (such as requirements of port interface and communication), whether major controlling mode is position, torque or speed mode, whether power supply is direct or alternating current power supply, or battery powered, and voltage scope. Based on this, we can determine models of motor and supporting drives or controllers.

Unipolar and bipolar driver architectures are most commonly used for stepper motors.
Unipolar stepper motor indicates the stepper motor with 2 coils and 5 or 6 lines. That is, one tap is increased in the middle of one coil. 5 lines can be seen as 6 ones. The two intermediate line of two coils can be connected. For there is tap in the middle of one coil, the current can flow towards different direction along the half way in one coil, but half of the motor coil is just used.
Bipolar stepper motor indicates the stepper motor with 2 coils and 4 lines. The current can flow in forward and reverse direction in two coils, so called bipolarity.

One of the most significant advantages of stepper motor is that it can be controlled accurately in open loop system because the rotor position can be determined only by tracking the input step pulse, but overheating problem occurs easily in stepper motor, so how to solve this problem if such condition occurs?

In the specific occasion, when the terminal load is stable, the action is simple and the motor basically runs at low speed, it is appropriate to choose the stepper motor with low cost and easily controlling. However, when terminal load fluctuation range is large, action is simple and the motor basically runs at low speed, if still choosing the stepper motor, a series of troubles are coming. In fact, in such situation, servo motor should be chosen, as the comprehensive cost will decline considering many factors.

For stepper motor specification, the operating temperature range for stepper motor should be 0～50℃ while humidity should be 20%～90%RH, and storage temperature should be -20～70℃ while humidity should be 15%～95%RH.