www.wimb.net - Stepper Motor Demo
This program shows the basic operation of the unipolar and bipolar stepper motors. In addition there are demos of a translator, oscillator and indexer.
This screen is the first one, from the unipolar stepper motor. In the program you can click on the switches to open or close them. In this way the current through the windings of the motor is controlled. If you switch in the correct sequence, the rotor rotates.
The current in the Unipolar Stepping Motor goes only through one or two of the coils. Half of the motor windings are not used.
The advantage is a very simple driver; it can be controlled by four outputs of a PLC. Disadvantages are the low performance.
The motor in this demo is the most elementary stepping motor in the world. You can make it by placing four little electromagnets around a compass.
The lamp is only for checking if the 12 Volt is present...
When a stepping motor has to go to a position then we need an indexer. With an indexer we can generate an exact number of pulses. Also the ramping is done automatically. An indexer, that can only make one single move like this one in the demo, is rare to be found anymore.
Now we have the "Motion Controller". A motion controller is a sophisticated indexer. It cannot only go to many positions, but it can also react on inputs and switch on and off outputs. Use the BCD switches to set the move distance.
There are 3 more screens, the Bipolar stepper motor, the Translator and the Oscillator. I won't overload your Internet connection by showing them all here. If you want to see them you can download the program.
Updated 2007 Oct. 09