Unit Overview and Outline:

Stepper Motors are actually simple motors, and there are lots of resource online to get them to work.. But they can also be tricky.  Not all Stepper Motors have the same color wires or the same number of wires... I'll repeat that again later...

Learning Objective:

• Be able to explain who a Stepper Motor works

• Know the differences and be able to explain what a Unipolar vs Bipolar Stepper Motor is

• Be able to debug and identify the coils of a Stepper Motor

• Be able to find and run code on a Ardunio or Raspberry Pi to spin a Stepper Motor

Prerequisites:

• No explicit prerequisite course work or coding knowledge is required, but students are expected to have a good understanding of basic computer principles.

Caution & Safety  Considerations:

Primer:  "Aaron, I can imagine no way in which this thing could be considered anywhere remotely close to safe. All I know is I spent six hours in there and I'm still alive... You still want to do it?"

• As with any activity, please make sure you are using appropriate safety equipment.   If you are coding, make sure you stand up and stretch every hour or so,  Please consider any safety issues connecting the Raspberry Pi, Arduino's, computers and other electronic equipment.

Getting Started:

• Not all Stepper Motors have the same color wires or the same number of wires... Many times each manufacture picks their own colors, so just because you have a diagram that shows a "pink" wire, does not actually mean that the more you with a pink wire is the same input and connected to the same coil. It is important to know how to debug and experimentally figure out what coils each wire is connected to.

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Stepper Motors - Lessons,  Lectures, Labs:

Stepper Motor Introduction

Lesson & Lab TBD

• What is a Stepper Motor? Introduction

• Spinning A Stepper Motor

  • Control DC and Stepper Motors With L298N Dual Motor Controller Modules and Arduino (backup PDF)

• How To Determine The Internal Winding

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Discovering The Internal Coil Configuration

Lesson & Lab TBD

Running Some Code

Lesson & Lab TBD

• LEDs on a Bread Board

Reference & Resources:

Basic Reference

• How to Identify the wires of stepper motor ?

Dig Deeper

• Stepper Motors with Arduino - Controlling Bipolar & Unipolar stepper motors

5 Wire Stepper Motor

• How to Identify the wires of a 5 wire stepper motor ?

  • YouTube - Stepper Motor Basics - 5 Wires Unipolar / Bipolar Motor

6 Wire Stepper Motors

• How to Identify the wires of a 6 wire stepper motor ?

  • YouTube - How to Identify the wires of a 6 wire  stepper motor ? <-- Quick and may be all you need to watch

  • YouTube - Stepper Motor Basics - 6 Wires Unipolar / Bipolar Motor <-- Detailed, and a good Debug exercise

Teachers - Unit, Module and Lesson Plans

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Random Stuff To Sort

• How to Identify the wires of stepper motor ?

  • YouTube - How to Identify the wires of stepper motor ?

  • YouTube - Electronic Basics #24: Stepper Motors and how to use them