A stepper motor is a motor that moves in distinct steps and can provide torque for the

rotating. The following information will talk about the basics of how the stepper motors work and
each different type of driving(ways the motor works).
The basic way of how stepper motors work is as follows. First, there are 5 wire leads, 2
leads per coil and another for the center attachment. Within the stepper, there are different
teeth. These 32 teeth in total are spread apart and each tooth is one step of the rotor. The rotor
has a permanent magnet on a plastic body that has 9 teeth. This permanent magnet slides
down and is surrounded by the coils and teeth. The ganged gears within the sterrer sit on a
plate and give a 64:1 gear ratio when all combined.
There is a specific way the motor electromagnetics work to allow the stepper to be
precise. ​This specific one is a unipolar stepper motor (no need for more electronics to change
the polarity). The blue lead initially goes in and wraps around the magnetic wire and create a
field once energy is put in them. The other end the coil goes in and that is where the electric
field is continued. The rotor is put in the middle of both the lead/coils and is in the magnetic field.
Polarity is created by flowing current through it (as can be seen by the right hand rule).
Switching which side of the coil to put current to decides how exactly to step the motor. This is
repeated with the other coil/leads as well to provide greater torque and accuracy.
The array driver is an extra component that is needed to attach a stepper motor. It has 7
different darlington pairs (a pair of transistors which allows low voltage to drive the higher
current stepper motor). Additionally, there are socket and header pins to allow for easy connects
and a jumper to allow an on/off.
There are 3 main types of driving in a stepper: wave drive, full-stepping, and
half-stepping. Wave driving fires a single phase at a time. It is the simplest to use and allows for
2048 steps per motor shaft rotation. Full-Stepping energizes 2 phases at a time. This type of
driving provides the same amount of accuracy as the wave drive, but with stronger torque.
Finally, Half-Stepping is a combination between wave and full-stepping. Half-Stepping
alternates between 1 and 2 phases at a time. While there is not as much torque as full-stepping,
there is more accuracy than it allowing for 4096 steps per motor shaft rotation.