Stepper Motors

a step motor is a motor with windings in the stator and permanent magnets attached to the rotor. it provides fixed mechanical increments of motion; these increments are referred to as steps and are generally specified in degrees. a step motor, in conjunction with a stepper drive, rotates in predefined angles proportional to the digital input command (stepper) pulses. a typical full-step system achieves 200 steps per revolution, this equates to 1.8º per full step. there are several advantages of using stepper motors. step motors provide acceleration torque equal to running torque and require no maintenance. speed can easily be determined and controlled by remembering speed equals steps per revolution divided by pulse rate. stepper motors can also make fine incremental moves and do not require a feedback encoder (open loop). stepper motors also have fast acceleration capability and have non-cumulative positioning error. along with excellent low speed/high torque characteristics