The
first stepper motors I used were sourced from old dot matrix printers.
A little small for my machine, but they did work. Slightly bigger
steppers can be found in laser printers and photo copiers. It really
depends on the size of the machine you want to build, the type of
work it does, and your budget. I wanted a good sized workshop router,
so I needed to spend some money and buy bigger stepper motors than
those I found in the junk pile.
While
I was browsing the Ocean Controls web site looking for stepper controllers,
I stumbled across their range of heavy duty stepper motors. Now
these are serious stepper motors, and at good prices. I ended up
using two MO-103 23HD803 steppers for the Z and Y Axis, and a big
MO-104 34HD101 stepper for the X axis. The MO-103 is rated at 0.6
amps with a holding torque of 1.6Nm, and the MO-104 is rated at
2 amps with 4.1Nm holding torque.
The Ocean Controls catalog is growing all the time, and since I
bought my stepper motors they have added more motors to their range,
such as the new MO-105 motor.In the photos below you can see the X axis stepper motor from the
early days, and later with the big MO-104 stepper, a big difference.
My X Axis drive. Originally I used a stepper motor from a old
dot matrix printer. It worked, max speed was 200mm/min.
Same machine, MO-104 stepper, and over 1000mm/min improvement.
To add in the near future....
Modifying stepper motors for more speed or torque.
