Open Source Stepper Motor

Overview

The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) has a need for stepper motors for linear and rotational motion control. The CNC Multi-machine, torch table, circuit board miller, and others all call for precise motion controlled by a computer or dedicated control device. While the early prototyping stages of these projects will use off-the-shelf stepper motors like the Xylotex Stepper Motor or NEMA. Eventually, we'd like to be able to fabricate stepper motors using the GVCS. This page is used to collect information on the fabrication of stepper motors.

Theory

A stepper motor uses controlled electrical pulses applied to a winding that generates a temporary magnetic field that causes a toothed rotor to move a small amount. Pulses applied sequentially to a set of winding poles is used to create motion. There is a very good animation of this from the wikipedia article on stepper motors: