stepper motor identification help?

[tonto2k]

Hi,

I have two stepper motors taken from two 5-1/4 floppy drives, they have 4 wires coming out of them: 1 yellow 1 blue 1 red 1 white.

From what I have read on the internet I think these are bipolar stepper motors but I would like some clarification on this if anyone knows please?

The brand/type is: MSHF200A01 SANKYO SEIKI and they are 12 volts.

One last thing, If I want to drive both of them at the same time would it be better to use 1 control board with 8 outputs or 2 boards with 4 outputs each? Its for use as a robot drivetrain.

Thanks in advance

 

[eclectic]

Tonto.
Your first question. Here are two sites which might help.

http://www.linengineering.com/site/products/wiringcon.html

http://www.piclist.com/techref/io/stepper/wires.asp

e.

 

[Mycroft2152]

Here's another:

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ih/doc/stepper/others/

Check down at the bottom of the page.

Here's one of my favorite projects using these motors

http://www.taomc.com/studio_machines/egg_plotter.htm

 

[geoff07]

For your second question, I would be tempted to use one Picaxe for each motor with a third providing the command instructions. That keeps the code and hardware simple and implements the kind of hierarchy that you need to make a robot work as you add complexity with e.g. self-preservation (sensors to stop collisions and falling off edges) and mission management. You could, for example, use serin with an interrupt when you want to change what each Picaxe/motor is doing. This approach costs a bit more but the upside is that things are less complex and you can upgrade one bit without jeopardising the rest.

I used a stepper motor from a floppy to drive an ultrasonic radar. The hardware is finished and rotates back and forth quite nicely, but the rest got parked and I need to dust it off and get it finished! This, if it works, is intended to help the command module steer around obstacles.

 

[tonto2k]

Hi guys, First of all thanks for all the informative replies

I think from the information you guys gave I should be able to identify the wires and get the motors running. There is only four wires how hard can it be !

I also think I will go for using a picaxe 8's to drive each motor(with a amplifier circuit).

I am thinking of buying these stepper motors I saw on ebay because they are already geared down and it would save me some space on the lego chassis. I am not sure whether they will be powerful enough though because I am currently using lego 9v motors with about 27-1 ratio.

The steppers are here: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=160231512746&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=006

Thanks for all your help