Another stepper motor

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I was looking for a simple mock-up to be used to explain the operation of a stepper motor to my students. This is what I came up with:
Just four coils on the edges of a plus-sign shape, where the two horizontal coils are connected in serial in a way that they create opposite polarity fields. Same arrangement for the two vertical coils. So we end up with a vertical and a horizontal coil. Once this is set, we use a pill-shaped magnet that will align with the vertical or horizontal magnetic field created by the coils.


What is even better, current is ramped-up on one axis while it is ramped-down on the other, a smoother movement can be achieved (aka micro-stepping).

Of course, that pill-shaped magnet will look familiar to you if you ever have been to a chemistry lab as they are used for magnetic stirrers.

So for powering this "motor", I have used a stepper motor driver A4988 and as you can see, if field changes are fast enough, the rotor can spin and even stir a liquid.

Comments

Unknown said…
circuit diagram of the whole setup
would be greatly appreciated
10:54 am
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