Completed Project How to use the circuit board from a WD 7200rpm HDD as stepper motor driver?

Thread Starter

Rahulk70

Joined Dec 16, 2016
536
Hello everyone. I recently got four SATA 500GB 7200rpm HDD and a 250GB 7200 rpm WD HDD. The latter one when I connected to my PC it spins for a while and then there is some clicking noise and so kind of grinding noise. It does not get detected on my PC too. So I tried to use the HDD to make a stepper motor driver. Used the SATA power connector I had previously salvaged from an old suply and connected the Black-Yello:12V and Black-Red:5V. The HDD was spinning for a while and then it stopped spinning and the cycle continues. I measured the voltage across the HDD Motor terminals and it reached a peak of 3.8V and keep falling to 0.5 and then rises to 3.8V again. I have a bunch of stepper motors I had salvaged from printers, Floppy, DVD drives etc. So, is it possible to make the circuit run a stepper motor continiously? Like any circuit modifications to make it happen?

Thank You,
Cheers :)
 

Papabravo

Joined Feb 24, 2006
21,159
My point was that none of the electronics on an HDD controller is suitable for driving a stepper motor because those types of drives do not use stepper motors of any kind.
 

Thread Starter

Rahulk70

Joined Dec 16, 2016
536
My point was that none of the electronics on an HDD controller is suitable for driving a stepper motor because those types of drives do not use stepper motors of any kind.
The motor on an HDD is a brushless motor right? Is it possible to use an ESC to run a stepper motor too because it is also brushless right?
 

Papabravo

Joined Feb 24, 2006
21,159
The motor on an HDD is a brushless motor right? Is it possible to use an ESC to run a stepper motor too because it is also brushless right?
No it is not possible. The internal construction of stepper motors and BLDC motors is quite different. These differences in the internal configurations lead to substantial differences in how you drive them and how they operate.

Research, read, learn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepper_motor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servomotor
 
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