What’s inside a stepper motor? in this video we learn what components are inside a stepper motor.A Stepper Motor is an electric motor that rotates by performing steps, that is by moving by a fixed amount of degrees.The motor’s position can be commanded to move and hold at one of these steps without any position sensor for feedback an open-loop controller, as long as the motor is correctly sized to the application in respect to torque and speed.
source/image: The Engineering Mindset
Switched reluctance motors are very large stepping motors with a reduced pole count, and generally are closed-loop commutated.Stepper motors effectively have multiple “toothed” electromagnets arranged as a stator around a central rotor, a gear-shaped piece of iron. The electromagnets are energized by an external driver circuit or a micro controller.
To make the motor shaft turn, first, one electromagnet is given power, which magnetically attracts the gear’s teeth. When the gear’s teeth are aligned to the first electromagnet, they are slightly offset from the next electromagnet.
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This means that when the next electromagnet is turned on and the first is turned off, the gear rotates slightly to align with the next one. From there the process is repeated. Each of the partial rotations is called a “step”, with an integer number of steps making a full rotation. In that way, the motor can be turned by a precise angle.
