Stepper Motor

Introduction
A stepper motor (or step motor) is a brushless, synchronous electric motor It can divide a full rotation into a large number of steps The motor's position can be controlled precisely, without any feedback mechanism Stepper motors are similar to switched reluctance motors

Types of Stepper Motor

Permanent Magnet Stepper The permanent-magnet stepper motor operates on the reaction between a permanent-magnet rotor and an electromagnetic field.

1. Rotor 2. stator

 Variable Reluctance Stepper The variable-reluctance (VR) stepper motor differs from the PM stepper in that it has no permanent-magnet rotor and no residual torque to hold the rotor at one position when turned off.

Variable-reluctance stepper motor and switching sequence.

 Hybrid Synchronous Stepper The hybrid stepper motor combines features of both the variable reluctance stepper and the permanent magnet stepper to produce a smaller step angle.

MECHANISM OF STEPPER MOTOR

The top electromagnet (1) is turned on, attracting the nearest teeth of a gearshaped iron rotor. With the teeth aligned to electromagnet 1, they will be slightly offset from electromagnet 2.

MECHANISM OF STEPPER MOTOR

The top electromagnet (1) is turned off, and the right electromagnet (2) is energized, pulling the nearest teeth slightly to the right. This results in a rotation of 3.6 in this example.

MECHANISM OF STEPPER MOTOR

The bottom electromagnet (3) is energized; another 3.6 rotation occurs.

MECHANISM OF STEPPER MOTOR

The left electromagnet (4) is enabled, rotating again by 3.6. When the top electromagnet (1) is again enabled, the teeth in the sprocket will have rotated by one tooth position; since there are 25 teeth, it will take 100 steps to make a full rotation in this example.

STEPPER MOTOR APPLICATION

Consumer Electronics - Stepper motors in cameras for automatic digital camera focus and zoom functions Automotive and Aircraft - Stepper motors help enable cars, SUVs and RVs to receive telecommunication signals.

Office Equipment - Stepper motors are incorporated inside PC based scanning equipment, data storage tape drives, optical disk drive head driving mechanism, printers, bar-code printers, scanners

 Medical - Step motors used inside medical scanners, multi-axis stepper motor microscopic or nanoscopic motion control of automated devices, dispensing pumps, samplers, and chromatograph auto-injectors Industrial machines - Stepper motors are used in automotive gauges, machine tooling automated production equipment (single/multi axis stepper motor controllers) and also in retrofit kits [stepper motor controllers and motors] for CNC machine control

 Scientific Instrumentation - Scientific Equipment Spectrographs, observatory telescope positioning

Chemical - Mixing and sampling devices utilizing stepper motor controllers and single/multi axis stepper motor controlled environmental testing equipment
Security - new surveillance products for the security industry Gaming industry - Stepper motors are used in the motors that power slot machines, wheel spinners and card shufflers

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