Print
PDFOverview
This document is part of a comprehensive tutorial on industrial Digital I/O and Counter/Timer hardware. Learn about National Instruments product offerings for digital and timing I/O, the Industrial Feature Set including watchdog timers and isolation, complementary devices like relays, solenoids and encoders, concepts like sinking and sourcing, and see how these devices can be used in your industrial application.
For more information return to the Complete Industrial Digital I/O and Counter/Timer Tutorial
Table of Contents
- Introduction to Stepper Motors
- Recommended NI Products that Connect to Stepper Motors
- Technical Overview
- Find a Stepper Motor
- Additional Resources
Introduction to Stepper Motors
A stepper, or stepping motor, converts electronic pulses into proportionate mechanical movement. Each revolution of the stepper motor's shaft is made up of a series of discrete individual steps. A step is defined as the angular rotation produced by the output shaft each time the motor receives a step pulse.
Recommended NI Products that Connect to Stepper Motors
For complete stepper motor control we recommend you use our motion control system products. However, for basic control of a stepper motor with an integrated drive, our high voltage isolated counter/timer module can be used.
| NI 6624 |
Technical Overview
Stepper motors are very popular in digital control circuits, such as robotics, because they are ideally suited for receiving digital pulses for step control. Each step causes the shaft to rotate a certain number of degrees. A step angle represents the rotation of the output shaft caused by each step, measured in degrees. Stepper motors are used commonly in printers, machine tools, process control systems, disk drives, and programmable controllers.
Find a Stepper Motor
Stepper Motors from National Instruments
Additional Resources
See the following links for more detailed information about stepper motors and stepper motion control systems:
NI Stepper Motion Control System
NI Stepper Motion System Selection Guide
NI Stepper Motor Drives
Stepper Motor Theory of Operation
Stepper Motor Switching Sequence
Types of Stepper Motors
Types of Stepper Motors (detailed)
Linear Stepper Motors
Selecting the Proper Size Stepper Motor
Reader Comments | Submit a comment »
Legal
This tutorial (this "tutorial") was developed by National Instruments ("NI"). Although technical support of this tutorial may be made available by National Instruments, the content in this tutorial may not be completely tested and verified, and NI does not guarantee its quality in any way or that NI will continue to support this content with each new revision of related products and drivers. THIS TUTORIAL IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND AND SUBJECT TO CERTAIN RESTRICTIONS AS MORE SPECIFICALLY SET FORTH IN NI.COM'S TERMS OF USE (http://ni.com/legal/termsofuse/unitedstates/us/).