I want to understand stepper motor controllers. Yes I know I can just read the specs and buy one but I want to understand what's inside. Preferably someone has a link
My use of stepper motors has been, I guess primitive. I can write software to toggle bits on an output port and then I connect these logic level bits to MOSFETs that switch a power supply to the coils in the motor. I can do full and half steps this way. But now I see something like the Geko driver that takes 40 volts input. I know that if it simply switched that 40V into the coils it would burn out the motor in short order. As the motor is typical rated for 7 volts DC or close to that. OK I can understand that if it is switching an inductive load the voltage raise is slower and maybe not get past 7V before the coil is switched off. But what if the motor is running slow? So my final guess is that these kinds of drivers are supplying a constant current and applying whatever volts is required up to the supply voltage. Is it as simple as that? A constant current power supply and some MOSFET H-bridge switches? -- Chris Albertson Redondo Beach, California ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
