I have a small stepper motor from a Canon printer, Mitsui
modelM35SP-11hpk. Four leads, yellow, black, orange, red. Colors
might be slightly off, I'm partially color-blind. I want to
experiment with it, but Google was not much help. I'm guessing
applying 10V or less should be enough to be able to step the motor.
Anyone have any advice?

On 12/19/2010 8:08 PM, wrote:
I have a small stepper motor from a Canon printer, Mitsui
modelM35SP-11hpk. Four leads, yellow, black, orange, red. Colors
might be slightly off, I'm partially color-blind. I want to
experiment with it, but Google was not much help. I'm guessing
applying 10V or less should be enough to be able to step the motor.
Anyone have any advice?

10V (DC) will typically be too much. You need lots of
voltage compliance to *accelerate* a stepper (to overcome
back EMF). But, "holding" (DC) is often just a few volts.

With four leads, you have two coils conceptually orthogonal
to each other. You need to be able to drive each coil
in each *direction* (i.e., "polarity") to cause the motor
to rotate. something like:

+- +-
-+ +-
-+ -+
+- -+

Lather, rinse, repeat.

There is a lot of science (and art!) in good stepper motor
driver design -- assuming you want to get the most performance
from a given frame size.

Ideally, you want a current-mode driver (you want to push
a certain current through the winding regardless of the
voltage across the winding) so that the drive can control
the motor at varying speeds.

Also, you would (ideally) like a "microstepping drive"
(even if you only stop on full steps) for better control.
(imagine driving one coil with a sine wave and the other
with a "cosine").

shrug Depends on whether you want to *play* with the
motor ("Gee, look, mom... it's spinning!!") or if you
actually want to *use* it (and, if so, how hard you
want to push it).

Google is your friend.

On Sat, 25 Dec 2010 19:44:22 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

Thanx for the links, when I studied EE, both Bachelors and Master's,
steppers were yet to be invented, and at Bell Labs I was into
communications electronics rather than anything mechanical.
Bob H

I never studied much in kollege. I've often suspected that they gave
me a diploma just to get rid of me.

Are you sure you didn't blunder into any steppers? They were around
starting the early 1960's. Phytron, Superior Electric and other were
making them mostly for the space program:
http://www.phytron-elektronik.de/antrieb/index.php?Set_ID=187
http://www.wimb.net/index.php?s=slosyn&page=4
Prior to that, you probably ran into servos, synchros, selsysn, PM
multiphase motors, and other analog nightmares. While not the same as
a digital drive stepper motor, much of the theory is similar (i.e.
damping, acceleration). Some of the early steppers were nothing more
than analog servos with digital drivers.

Good luck learning (by destroying) about stepper motors. If you
haven't smoked a winding, you haven't learned why steppers use much
lower holding current than (peak) drive current. That's one reason to
invest in a driver/controller, who's secondary purpose is to keep you
from producing smoke instead of rotation.

If you're looking for a worthy project, I recommend a 2 axis solar
tracker and solar coffee warmer.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

In article ,
Jeff Liebermann wrote:
Are you sure you didn't blunder into any steppers? They were around
starting the early 1960's. Phytron, Superior Electric and other were
making them mostly for the space program:
http://www.phytron-elektronik.de/antrieb/index.php?Set_ID=187
http://www.wimb.net/index.php?s=slosyn&page=4
Prior to that, you probably ran into servos, synchros, selsysn, PM
multiphase motors, and other analog nightmares. While not the same as
a digital drive stepper motor, much of the theory is similar (i.e.
damping, acceleration). Some of the early steppers were nothing more
than analog servos with digital drivers.

Didn't film use some form of stepper motor from quite early on? The need
to synchronise several reels for things like sound dubbing.

--
*He had delusions of adequacy.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Sun, 26 Dec 2010 11:27:30 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Jeff Liebermann wrote:
Are you sure you didn't blunder into any steppers? They were around
starting the early 1960's. Phytron, Superior Electric and other were
making them mostly for the space program:
http://www.phytron-elektronik.de/antrieb/index.php?Set_ID=187
http://www.wimb.net/index.php?s=slosyn&page=4
Prior to that, you probably ran into servos, synchros, selsysn, PM
multiphase motors, and other analog nightmares. While not the same as
a digital drive stepper motor, much of the theory is similar (i.e.
damping, acceleration). Some of the early steppers were nothing more
than analog servos with digital drivers.

Didn't film use some form of stepper motor from quite early on? The need
to synchronise several reels for things like sound dubbing.

Dunno. I've never worked on film chains, although I used them in
college. As I vaguely recall, they used servo motors with tachometer
feedback to control speeds, and lots of precision gears.

Google found this site which mumbles something about using steppers
with film. They use Superior Electric steppers.
http://seriss.com/opcs/

I did a bit of digging with Google Patent search:
http://www.google.com/patents/
Searching for "film stepper motor" yielded about 1958 for the earliest
patents. The original stepper motor patent was filed in 1953 and
granted in 1955.
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=ePJbAAAAEBAJ

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558