Stepper motor

interfacing
Stepper motor
• Stepper motor is a brush less motor which converts electrical pulses into
mechanical rotation.
• As the name indicates it rotates in steps according to the input pulses.
• A stepper motor usually have a number of field coils (phases) and a toothed
rotor.
• The step size of the motor is determined by the number of phases and the
number of teeth on the rotor.
• Step size is the angular displacement of the rotor in one step. If a stepper
motor has 4 phases and 50 teeth, it takes 50×4=200 steps to make one
complete rotation. So step angle will be 360/200=1.8°.
• The stepper motor we are using has 4 poles and a
1/64 reduction gear mechanism for increasing
torque.
• The step angle of the motor is 5.64°. But when
considering the reduction gear, the step angle of
the output shaft is 5.64/64°.
• The internal schematic of the stepper motor is
given below.
The stepper motor is rotated by switching individual phases ON for a given
time one by one. The sequence is given in the graph below.
Circuit diagram
• The circuit diagram for interfacing stepper motor to 8051 is shown above.
• P1.0, P1.1, P1.2 and P1.3 pins are used for controlling the phases A1, A2, A3 and A4
of the stepper motor respectively.
• ULN2003 is used for driving the individual phases of the stepper motor. ULN2003 is
a darlington transistor array used for driving high current loads such as relays and
motors.
• ULN2003 has 8 individual channels each with 1A capacity. The channels can be
paralleled to increase the current capacity.
• Each channels are fitted with individual freewheeling diodes. The ULN2003 is
operated in current sinking mode.
• Each channel is activated by giving a logic LOW at the corresponding input. For
example if we make pin 1 of ULN2003 LOW, phase A1 of the stepper motor gets
switched ON.