Step Motors

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Step Motors
A stepper motor (step motor or stepping motor) is an electromechanical device which converts
electrical pulses into discrete mechanical movements. The shaft or spindle of a stepper motor rotates
in discrete step increments when electrical command pulses are applied to it in the proper sequence.
The motors rotation has several direct relationships to these applied input pulses. The sequence of
the applied pulses is directly related to the direction of motor shafts rotation. The speed of the
motor shafts rotation is directly related to the frequency of the input pulses and the length of
rotation is directly related to the number of input pulses applied.

fig1. Stepper motor types

Types of Stepper Motors

There are three basic types of stepping motors by structures:
Variable reluctance
Permanent magnet
Hybrid
Permanent magnet motors have a magnetized rotor, while variable reluctance motors have
toothed soft-iron rotors. Hybrid stepping motors combine aspects of both permanent magnet and
variable reluctance technology.
The stator, or stationary part of the stepping motor holds multiple windings. The arrangement of
these windings is the primary factor that distinguishes different types of stepping motors from an
electrical point of view. From the electrical and control system perspective, variable reluctance
motors are distant from the other types. Both permanent magnet and hybrid motors may be wound
using either unipolar windings, bipolar windings or bifilar windings.[5]

Varible Reluctance Stepper

This type of motor consists of a soft iron multi-toothed rotor and a wound stator. When the
stator windings are energized with DC current the poles become magnetized. Rotation occurs when
the rotor teeth are attracted to the energized stator poles.

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fig2. Cross-section of a variable reluctance (VR) motor.

Variable Reluctance Motors (also called variableswitched reluctance motors) have three to five
windings connected to a common terminal. Figure 3 shows the cross section of a three winding, 30
degree per step variable reluctance motor. The rotor in this motor has four teeth and the stator has
six poles, with each winding wrapped around opposing poles. The rotor teeth marked X are attracted
to winding 1 when it is energized. This attraction is caused by the magnetic flux path generated
around the coil and the rotor. The rotor experiences a torque and moves the rotor in line with the
energized coils, minimizing the flux path. The motor moves clockwise when winding 1 is turned off
and winding 2 in energized. The rotor teeth marked Y are attracted to winding 2. This results in 30
degrees of clockwise motion as Y lines up with winding 2. Continuous clockwise motion is achieved
by sequentially energizing and de-energizing windings around the stator. The following control
sequence will spin the motor depicted in Figure 1 clockwise for 12 steps or one revolution.

fig3. Cross-section of three winding variable reluctance (VR) motor.

In variable reluctance stepper motor

The rotor is a soft iron cylinder with salient (protruding) poles.

This is the least complex, most inexpensive stepper motor.
The only type stepper with no detent torque in hand rotation of a de-energized motor shaft.
Large step angle
A lead screw is often mounted to the shaft for linear stepping motion[4]

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Permanent Magnet Stepper

Often referred to as a tin can or canstock motor the permanent magnet step motor is a low
cost and low resolution type motor with typical step angles of 7.5 to 15. (48 24 steps/revolution)
permanent magnet stepper (PM) motors as the name implies have permanent magnets added to the
motor structure. The rotor no longer has teeth as with the VR motor. Instead the rotor is magnetized
with alternating North and south poles situated in a straight line parallel to the rotor shaft. These
magnetized rotor poles provide an increased magnetic flux intensity and because of this the PM
motor exhibits improved torque characteristics when compared with the VR type.

fig4. Principle of a PM or tin-can stepper motor.

There are three common method to produce permanent magnet for these kind of electrical
devices. They are heating, appliying magnetig field and hammering.

The most common method of making magnets today

involves placing metal in a magnetic field. The field exerts
torque on the material, encouraging the domains to align.
There's a slight delay, known as hysteresis, between the
application of the field and the change in domains. Curie
temperature
is also an important phenomena in
magnetising methods. Curie temperature (or Curie point)
is the temperature at which certain materials lose their
permanent magnetic properties, to be replaced by
induced magnetism. The Curie temperature is named
after Pierre Curie, who showed that magnetism was lost
at a critical temperature.[6-9]

fig5. Hysteresis loop

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In permanent magnet stepper motor

The rotor is a permanent magnet, often a ferrite sleeve magnetized with numerous poles.
Can-stack construction provides numerous poles from a single coil with interleaved fingers of
soft iron.
Large to moderate step angle.
Often used in computer printers to advance paper.
Hysterisis loop gives more imformation of the torque of the motor and caracteristics

Hybrid Stepper Motor

The hybrid stepper motor is more expensive than the PM stepper motor but provides better
performance with respect to step resolution, torque and speed. Typical step angles for the HB
stepper motor range from 3.6 to 0.9 (100 400 steps per revolution). The hybrid stepper motor
combines the best features of both the PM and VR type stepper motors. The rotor is multi-toothed
like the VR motor and contains an axially magnetized concentric magnet around its shaft. The teeth
on the rotor provide an even better path which helps guide the magnetic flux to preferred locations
in the airgap. This further increases the detent, holding and dynamic torque characteristics of the
motor when compared with both the VR and PM types.
The two most commonly used types of stepper motors are the permanent magnet and the
hybrid types. If a designer is not sure which type will best fit his applications requirements he should
first evaluate the PM type as it is normally several times less expensive. If not then the hybrid motor
maybe the right choice.

fig6. Cross-section of a hybrid stepper motor

In hybrid stepper motor

The step angle is smaller than variable reluctance or permanent magnet steppers.
The rotor is a permanent magnet with fine teeth. North and south teeth are offset by half a
tooth for a smaller step angle.
The stator poles have matching fine teeth of the same pitch as the rotor.
The stator windings are divided into no less than two phases.

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The poles of one stator windings are offset by a quarter tooth for an even smaller step
angle[4]

There are two basic types of stepping motors by winding control

Unipolar
Bipolar

Unipolar Stepper Motors

Unipolar stepping motors are composed of two windings, each with a center tap. The center taps
are either brought outside the motor as two separate wires (as shown in Figure 7) or connected to
each other internally and brought outside the motor as one wire. As a result, unipolar motors have 5
or 6 wires. Regardless of the number of wires, unipolar motors are driven in the same way. The
center tap wire(s) is tied to a power supply and the ends of the coils are alternately grounded.
Unipolar stepping motors, like all permanent magnet and hybrid motors, operate differently from
variable reluctance motors. Rather than operating by minimizing the length of the flux path between
the stator poles and the rotor teeth, where the direction of current flow through the stator windings
is irrelevant, these motors operate by attracting the north or south poles of the permanently
magnetized rotor to the stator poles. Thus, in these motors, the direction of the current through the
stator windings determines which rotor poles will be attracted to which stator poles. Current
direction in unipolar motors is dependent on which half of a winding is energized. Physically, the
halves of the windings are wound parallel to one another. Therefore, one winding acts as either a
north or south pole depending on which half is powered.
Figure 7 shows the cross section of a 30 degree per step unipolar motor. Motor winding number 1
is distributed between the top and bottom stator poles, while motor winding number 2 is distributed
between the left and right motor poles. The rotor is a permanent magnet with six poles, three north
and three south, as shown in Figure 7.

fig7. Cross-section of a unipolar stepper motor

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Bipolar Stepper Motors

Bipolar stepping motors are composed of two windings and have four wires. Unlike unipolar
motors, bipolar motors have no center taps. The advantage to not having center taps is that current
runs through an entire winding at a time instead of just half of the winding. As a result, bipolar
motors produce more torque than unipolar motors of the same size. The draw back of bipolar
motors, compared to unipolar motors, is that more complex control circuitry is required by bipolar
motors.
Current flow in the winding of a bipolar motor is bidirectional. This requires changing the polarity
of each end of the windings. As shown in Figure 3, current will flow from left to right in winding 1
when 1a is positive and 1b is negative. Current will flow in the opposite direction when the polarity
on each end is swapped. A control circuit, known as an H-bridge, is used to change the polarity on
the ends of one winding. Every bipolar motor has two windings, therefore, two H-bridge control
circuits are needed for each motor. The H-bridge is discussed in more detail in the Basic Control
Circuits section.

fig8. Cross-section of a bipolar stepper motor

There are two basic types of stepping motors by winding type

Monofilar
Bifilar

Monofilar and Bifilar Stepper Motors

The coil is wound with only one single wire in monofilar stepper motors. The term bifilar literally
means two threaded. Motors with bifilar windings are identical in rotor and stator to bipolar
motors with one exception each winding is made up of two wires wound parallel to each other. As
a result, common bifilar motors have eight wires instead of the four wires of a comparable bipolar
motor.

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Bifilar motors are driven as either bipolar or unipolar motors. To use a bifilar motor as a unipolar
motor, the two wires of each winding are connected in series and the point of connection is used as a
center-tap. Winding 1 in Figure 9 shows the unipolar winding connection configuration. To use a
bifilar motor as a bipolar motor, the two wires of each winding are connected in either parallel or
series. Winding 2 in Figure 9 shows the parallel connection configuration. A parallel connection
allows for high current operation, while a series connection allows for high voltage operation.

fig9. Cross-section of a bifilar stepper motor

fig10. Comparisonof monofilar and bifilar stepper motors

Stepping Modes of Stepper Motors

The following are the most common drive modes.
Wave Drive (1 phase on)
Full Step Drive (2 phases on)
Half Step Drive (1 & 2 phases on)
Microstepping (Continuously varying motor currents)

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Phases, Poles and Stepping Angles

Usually stepper motors have two phases, but three- and five-phase motors also exist.
A bipolar motor with two phases has one winding/phase and a unipolar motor has one winding,
with a center tap per phase. Sometimes the unipolar stepper motor is referred to as a fourphase
motor, even though it only has two phases.
Motors that have two separate windings per phase also existthese can be driven in either
bipolar or unipolar mode.
A pole can be defined as one of the regions in a magnetized body where the magnetic flux density
is concentrated. Both the rotor and the stator of a step motor have poles. Figure 4 contains a
simplified Picture of a two-phase stepper motor having 2 poles (or 1 pole pairs) for each phase on the
stator, and 2 poles (one pole pair) on the rotor. In reality several more poles are added to both the
rotor and stator structure in order to increase the number of steps per revolution of the motor, or in
other words to provide a smaller basic (full step) stepping angle. The permanent magnet stepper
motor contains an equal number of rotor and stator pole pairs. Typically the PM motor has 12 pole
pairs. The stator has 12 pole pairs per phase. The hybrid type stepper motor has a rotor with teeth.
The rotor is split into two parts, separated by a permanant magnetmaking half of the teeth south
poles and half North poles.The number of pole pairs is equal to the number of teeth on one of the
rotor halves. The stator of a hybrid motor also has teeth to build up a higher number of equivalent
poles (smaller pole pitch, number of equivalent poles = 360/teeth pitch) compared to the main poles,
on which the winding coils are wound. Usually 4 main poles are used for 3.6 hybrids and 8 for 1.8and 0.9-degree types.
It is the relationship between the number of rotor poles and the equivalent stator poles, and the
number the number of phases that determines the full-step angle of a stepper motor.
Step angle = 360 / (NPh x Ph)=360/N
Where;
NPh = Number of equivalent poles per phase = number of rotor poles
Ph = Number of phases
N = Total number of poles for all phases together
If the rotor and stator tooth pitch is unequal, a more-complicated relationship exists.

Stepper Motor Driver Circuits

Stepper motor performance is strongly dependent on the driver circuit. Torque curves may be
extended to greater speeds if the stator poles can be reversed more quickly, the limiting factor being
the winding inductance. To overcome the inductance and switch the windings quickly, one must
increase the drive voltage. This leads further to the necessity of limiting the current that these high
voltages may otherwise induce. [3]

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L/R driver circuits

L/R driver circuits are also referred to as constant voltage drives because a constant positive or
negative voltage is applied to each winding to set the step positions. However, it is winding current,
not voltage that applies torque to the stepper motor shaft. The current I in each winding is related to
the applied voltage V by the winding inductance L and the winding resistance R. The resistance R
determines the maximum current according to Ohm's law I=V/R. The inductance L determines the
maximum rate of change of the current in the winding according to the formula for an inductor dI/dt
= V/L. Thus when controlled by an L/R drive, the maximum speed of a stepper motor is limited by its
inductance since at some speed, the voltage U will be changing faster than the current I can keep up.
In simple terms the rate of change of current is L / R (e.g. a 10 mH inductance with 2 ohms resistance
will take 5 ms to reach approx 2/3 of maximum torque or around 24 ms to reach 99% of max torque).
To obtain high torque at high speeds requires a large drive voltage with a low resistance and low
inductance. [3]
With an L/R drive it is possible to control a low voltage resistive motor with a higher voltage drive
simply by adding an external resistor in series with each winding. This will waste power in the
resistors, and generate heat. It is therefore considered a low performing option, albeit simple and
cheap. [3]
Chopper drive circuits
Chopper drive circuits are referred to as constant current drives because they generate a
somewhat constant current in each winding rather than applying a constant voltage. On each new
step, a very high voltage is applied to the winding initially. This causes the current in the winding to
rise quickly since dI/dt = V/L where V is very large. The current in each winding is monitored by the
controller, usually by measuring the voltage across a small sense resistor in series with each winding.
When the current exceeds a specified current limit, the voltage is turned off or "chopped", typically
using power transistors. When the winding current drops below the specified limit, the voltage is
turned on again. In this way, the current is held relatively constant for a particular step position. This
requires additional electronics to sense winding currents, and control the switching, but it allows
stepper motors to be driven with higher torque at higher speeds than L/R drives. Integrated
electronics for this purpose are widely available. [3]

Application Areas
Computer controlled stepper motors are a type of motion-control positioning system. They are
typically digitally controlled as part of an open loop system for use in holding or positioning
applications. [3] In the field of lasers and optics they are frequently used in precision positioning
equipment such as linear actuators, linear stages, rotation stages, goniometers, and mirror mounts.
Other uses are in packaging machinery, and positioning of valve pilot stages for fluid control systems.
[3]

Commercially, stepper motors are used in floppy disk drives, flatbed scanners, computer printers,
plotters, slot machines, image scanners, compact disc drives, intelligent lighting, camera lenses, CNC
machines and, more recently, in 3D printers. [3]

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Advantages of Using Step Motors

Open loop control

One of the most significant advantages of a stepper motor is its ability to be accurately
controlled in an open loop system. Open loop control means no feedback information about
position is needed. This type of control eliminates the need for expensive sensing and
feedback devices such as optical encoders. Your position is known simply by keeping track of
the input step pulses.

Positioning
Since steppers move in precise repeatable steps, they excel in applications requiring precise
positioning such as 3D printers, CNC, Camera platforms and X,Y Plotters. Some disk drives
also use stepper motors to position the read/write head. [2]

Speed Control
Precise increments of movement also allow for excellent control of rotational speed for
process automation and robotics. [2] A stepper motor is very good at starting, stopping, and
reversing direction. [1]

Low Speed Torque

Normal DC motors don't have very much torque at low speeds. A Stepper motor has
maximum torque at low speeds, so they are a good choice for applications requiring low
speed with high precision. [2] A wide range of rotational speeds can be utilized since the
speed of a step motor is proportional to the frequency of the input pulses from your
controller. [1]

Reliability
A stepper motor is quite reliable because there are no contact brushes. Generally, the life of
a stepper motor is determined by the life of the stepper motor bearing. [1]

Economic
Low cost for control achieved. Low maintenance, the life of the motor is simply dependant
on the life of the bearing. The motors response to digital input pulses provides open-loop
control, making the motor simpler and less costly to control

Disadvantages of Using Step Motors

Low Efficiency
Unlike DC motors, stepper motor current consumption is independent of load. They draw the
most current when they are doing no work at all. Because of this, they tend to run hot. [2]

Limited High Speed Torque

In general, stepper motors have less torque at high speeds than at low speeds. Some
steppers are optimized for better high-speed performance, but they need to be paired with
an appropriate driver to achieve that performance. [2]

No Feedback
Unlike servo motors, most steppers do not have integral feedback for position. Although
great precision can be achieved running open loop. Limit switches or home detectors are
typically required for safety and/or to establish a reference position. [2]

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References
[1] https://www.circuitspecialists.com/stepper-motor
[2] https://learn.adafruit.com/all-about-stepper-motors/what-is-a-stepper-motor
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepper_motor
[4] http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/alternating-current/chpt-13/stepper-motors/
[5] Reston Condit, Microchip Tech. Inc., Stepping Motors Fundamentals
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curie_temperature
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curie_temperature
[9] http://science.howstuffworks.com/magnet2.htm

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