Step motor leads

[diblazing]

I have a 24 V DC 0.18 A Step-Syn Step motor(Sanyo Denki) out of an old IBM computer. I would like to use this step motor to drive a lead screw in a drilling machine I am designing. There are 5 leads coming out of the Step motor: Black, Red, Orange, Blue, and Yellow. Just guessing I believe the black and red would drive the motor and the other three are from an internal encoder. Am I on the right track and can I find this to be true by testing it with a VOM? If this is the case I plan on connecting the motor directly to a Mitsubishi FXo PLC. The FXo can handle 0.2 A average/ contact, will this be able to poperly power the motor? If so I plan on using ladder logic in a pulse fuction to drive the motor the number of steps necessary. The PLC I am planning on using does not have enough I/O to return the encoder data, can I count on the accuracy of the motor without the feed back of the encoder? I am also looking for suggestions on how to connect the motor to the PLC.

Thanks for your time
Best Regards

 

[leonar40]

A very simple circuit to drive a stepper motor would be something to produce square wave pulses and a high or low to denote direction (think PIC or other microcontroller) and then a motor driver that takes in those pulses and direction input and output the correct sequence of power pulses to the motor coils. An easy to use driver that I like is the Allegro A3967.

 

[cbarn24050]

I hope it's a very small drilling machine.

 

[blacksea]

Leonar40: we talk about unipolar (!) stepper motor with 5 wires (common central taps). The A3967 suggested by you is intended for bipolar steppers only!

 

[jclough]

Running a unipolar VR stepper with a bipolar drive isn't a problem.

 

[diblazing]

Thanks for your Time. I completed all of the dynamic calculations to determine the proper Stepper Motor size found one that would fit my application, found a small driver for the motor and then hit a huge snag right before I purchased the items. I was planning on using a mitsubishi FXo PLC to the driver inputs. This would have worked fine but the PLC does not have the capability to handle a pulse output. I then tried to work my way around the problem by using the PLC as the driver using 4 Outputs and timers in ladder logic to simulate a pulse. The controller I have is also limited to a time step of 0.1 sec which calculated out to about 20 sec per rev or 3 RPM which will not fit within my time constraints. Is there any other way that I can inexpesivly Drive the stepper a certain number of steps. Any help is appreciated.

 

[jclough]

What do you consider inexpensive? Put up some specifics and I'm sure we could come up with something.

 

[cbarn24050]

You should be able to find a stepper driver/controller board on the web. You can try making your own but thats a tall order if want anything other than rock bottom performance.

 

[diblazing]

I'm looking to spend less than $250 if that is possible for this area of the drilling machine. The stepper will only be used to posistion material. I will be drilling 2" and smaller aluminum square tube. The motor will only need to overcome part/machine inertia and hold it position durring the drill process (which is in a perpendicular plan). I found a system on automationdirect.com that fits my $ range. I plan on using a NEMA 17 Motor, a power supply and one of their PLC's. I'm not sure if i also need a driver or not. It looks like the power supply/ PLC combo can perform the tasks of a driver. Am I on the rigth track?
Thanks for your help.

 

[cbarn24050]

You will need a driver for the motor. There are numerous intellegent stepper drives around, by using 1 of those you should be able to dispence with the PLC and maybe the power supply as well.

 

[diblazing]

I think I need to use the PLC. It will be automating the drilling process with all of the other components. I need it to control pneumatic cylinders and have the ability to be switch from one part to another for different drilling locations. This being the case, would I want to get a simple driver that I could merely send a pulse and direction to for a certain time interval in order to properly move the material? I started doing a little seaching on EBAY but am concerned that if I find something I like I won't be able to find the right software to program it. Should this be a main concern?

Thanks

 

[cbarn24050]

Sounds like you just want a dc motor and a relay.