Thank you. You are my hero. My CNC machine that I purchased second hand was knocked off the table by my garage door; damaging two of the stepper motors. I had to replace them with similar motors, but, naturally, the color codes did not match. I needed baseline information on how stepper motors work. Thank you for your common sense information without all the fluff or assumptions.
This is a very much important video thanks for these tips. I saw 2 people have thumbed down I feel it is really unfair, and I hope they both didn't know anything about stepper motors and drivers . and some people may confuse about which is A and which is A+ but it is easy. Just connect and see the turning direction, if you see the direction is against to what you need just change the wire.. Just practise with the available knowledge, then you will get more knwledge. (this message is for viewers)
Great video! I have a stepper motor and i have separated the phases but i don't know which phase is A and which one is B. Also if i discover which phases is which, then how do i know which cable is A+ and which one is A- and the same for B+ and B-?
You cannot tell phase A from phase B without the motor datasheet. The good news is that it really doesn't matter much. If they are switched, the motor will turn backwards, but otherwise run correctly.
I have looked for your video on wiring the six and eight wire stepper motors and cannot find it could you please send me a link or tell me where it is. thank you very much
Are the phases an AC voltage ? or are they dc . It would be nice if you included a sketch of the waveforms in the wires for clarity. Thanks for nice video.
It's more complicated than AC vs DC. The voltage is PWMed (Pulse Width Modulated). So the voltage is a lot of short pulses of varying lengths that can positive or negative. The current, which changes more slowly due to the inductance of the motor, is an stair stepped AC waveform. I wanted to keep this video simple so I didn't delve into all the details.
HI, what would happen if you had A wired one way & B wired the other way is +&- Reversed on the B line, would it turn the motor 1 step in one direction then one step in the other direction ? in that case how do we know what wire on each coil is + ?
There are many different ways the motor wires may be labeled. The voltage is determined by the motor driver. Most motors run on around 3-4v but modern drivers run on much higher voltages. The the current version of the Buildbotics controller uses up to 36v. Higher voltages are better because, in general, it allows the driver to drive the motors with more torque at higher speeds and thus faster. However, the quality of the driver plays a huge role. A poor quality driver with a higher voltage will not necessarily run a motor faster than a high quality driver, like the drivers in the Buildbotics controller. Another very important consideration when driving stepper motors is the robustness of the driver electronics. Cheap drivers are very easy to blow up.
