Stepper motors divide a full rotation into hundreds of discrete steps, which makes them ideal to precisely control movements, be it in cars, robots, 3D printers or CNC machines. Most stepper motors ...

Stepper motors are often used for positioning since they are cost-effective, easy to drive, and can be used in open-loop systems—meaning that they don’t require position feedback like servo motors.

When it’s time to specify a high-performance motor that offers both precise positioning and cost efficiency, stepper motors offer many advantages over DC motors thanks to their brushless technology.

The graph shows that at 16 microsteps/full step, the incremental torque for one microstep is less than 10% of the full-step holding torque. The lure of microstepping a two-phase stepper motor is ...

• The inductance in a stepper-motor phase winding limits how fast current rises when power is applied. • Series-resistor current limiting needs higher voltages for faster step rates, but higher ...

In a recent article, I wrote about step-motor system performance emphasizing key concepts that all engineers need to understand about this widely-used electro-magnetic-mechanical digital actuator. As ...