How Stepper Motor actually works?

Miki Satou
4 min readJul 30, 2018

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How Stepper Motor actually works?

Stepper motor has rotor and stator. The rotor is the moveable part which is either variable reluctance or permanent magnet while the stator is often constructed with multiphase windings. Stator actually has three or four phase windings that are wounded with the number of poles decided as per the angular displacement per pulses.

Stepper motor for sale works through the pulses that when applied it turned through the particular angle. This angle is actually the point from which motor shaft turns which is always expressed in degree.

The number of pulses given to the motor decides the number of angles to cover. So, the motor shaft position is controlled by the number of pulses. This feature only makes it suitable for open-loop control system where an accurate shaft position is maintained with the fixed number of pulses with no use of feedback sensor.

Image Source: manufacturinget

If the angle of a step is smaller, the number of steps will be greater per revolution and so the accuracy of obtained position will be higher. The largest angle can be 90 degrees and small angle will be as 0.72 degrees. Anyway, the most common steps of the angle which are used are 1.8°, 2.5°, 7.5° and 15°.

The shaft rotation direction depends on the pulses sequence applied to the stator. The shaft speed is directly proportional to the input pulses frequency. So, when a frequency is low, the stepper motor rotates in steps and when the frequency is high, it rotates in continuous speed.

Nowadays, you can find varied types of stepper motors with wide ranges of sizes, constructions, wiring, steps count, gearing, programmed and many other things that are available in the market. These motors are modified with the digital control devices like the computer. And, due to this reason, it is now used in varied areas.

Here are the ten basic stepper motor applications where it is essentially needed. So, let’s know about different areas of its application:

1. Electronic items

Stepper motor is used in the digital camera for focus and zoom function. In addition to this, various auxiliary elements such as cooling fans, CD ROM, also uses the motor. Now, the camera phone is also using motor inside the handset.

Image Source: andcircuit

2. Aircraft and Automotive

Stepper motor helps the car SUV’s and RV’s to catch the signals of telecommunication. It is also used for military antenna, cruise control, automated camera and automated sensing device.

In aircraft, stepper motors are used in sensing devices, aircraft instruments, scanning equipment, antennas and more.

Image Source: aeroexpo

3. Medical Equipment

Step motors are used in scanners, automated device nanoscopic motion control, multi-axis stepper motor microscopic, samples, dispensing device, auto injectors and more.

It is also used inside fluid pumps, blood analysis machinery, dental photography, and respirators.

4. Industrial Equipment

Stepper motors are used in automated production equipment, automotive gauges, and in retrofit cnc stepper motor kit for CNC machine control. Single and multi-axis stepper motor controllers are used with the motor for automated control.

Image Source: cjmasset

5. Offices

Steppers motors are incorporated in your PC, scanners, optical disk drive, data storage tape drives, bar code printers, printers and many other devices which are used in your office.

6. Scientific Instrumentation

It is used in various scientific equipment like spectrographs, telescope positioning, and more.

Image Source: ekspla

7. Chemical Industry

Various mixing and sampling devices used in chemical industry work on stepper motor controller with environmental testing equipment axis stepper motor controller.

8. Gaming Industry

It is used in the machine that power wheel spinners, card shufflers, and wheel spinners.

Image Source: casinowhizz

9. Security equipment

It is used in the camera which is used for surveillance at various places like the commercial building, markets, local super markets and more.

10. Digital Watches

Mini stepping motors are used in clocks, electric meters, and watches which are machined by the implementations of various techniques.

Image Source: rackcdn.

These are the important usage of nema 17 stepp motor due to which it is essentially needed almost in every field. Nowadays, you can have the modified stepper motor as per your need with in-built digital technologies.

Anyway, if you want more information concerning to Steppers motor, please let us know in our comment box.

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