Quick stepper motor question

Thread Starter

Rake32

Joined Jan 17, 2016
3
As the title says, just a quick one I could use some help on.

I'm looking through my uni notes and the lecturer has said the power supply needs to be turned off when measuring the winding resistance of a motor. He the put a (why??) after, I'm just not sure why it does? Will the motor draw some current even if it's not turning?

Cheers,
Jake
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
As the title says, just a quick one I could use some help on.

I'm looking through my uni notes and the lecturer has said the power supply needs to be turned off when measuring the winding resistance of a motor. He the put a (why??) after, I'm just not sure why it does? Will the motor draw some current even if it's not turning?

Cheers,
Jake
Your meter measures resistance by supplying a known constant current across the resistor and then measuring the voltage across the unknown resistor. Current * resistance = voltage

So, how would adding a current flow from your power supply screw things up?
 

Thread Starter

Rake32

Joined Jan 17, 2016
3
Well It'd give a lower resistance reading. Is that it then? The motor will draw even when it's not stepping?
 

MaxHeadRoom

Joined Jul 18, 2013
28,619
You should always remove power when measuring resistance, otherwise the reading will be affected, as per @GopherT the meter supplies the current needed.
A stepper motor will draw current with steady DC and remain stationary, this is known as the Holding torque, and if the DC is the motor rated value, the torque will be the rated torque of the motor.
Max.
 

Roderick Young

Joined Feb 22, 2015
408
Depending on how the motor is driven, there may be power flowing to it even if the rotor is not moving. If there are 4 sets of windings, A, B, C, and D, the drive could be

A - B - C - D - A - ...

and when the rotor is not moving, all the windings could be turned off to save power, or one could be energized to give extra holding strength and make sure the rotor does not slip out of positions.

Or it could be driven

A - AB - B - BC - C - CD - D - DA - A - ...

The above gives half-steps between the individual winding positions, and more power. Again, when the rotor is stopped, all windings could be turned off to save power, but in that case, the rotor will slip to one of the natural positions. To hold the rotor in a position between windings requires continuous power to a pair of windings.

And besides that, it's always a good idea to turn power off before probing something.
 
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