Stepper Motor Wiring to a Driver

By trial and error

Also see: other methods if figuring out stepper motor wiring

ALWAYS power down the driver before connecting or disconnecting a motor wire. Failure to do so will very probably fry the driver

For most common 5-wire unipolar motors;

1. find common "centre tap" using an ohmmeter the resistance between the center and any leg of that coil is 1/2 that from leg to leg. Measuring from one coil to the other will show an open circuit, since the 2 coils are not connected.
2. common goes to M+ power
3. other 4 wires are the phases

With 6-wire unipolar motors;

1. find the 2 common wires
2. connect these together
3. connect commons to M+ power
4. other 4 wires are the phases

Hook up the controller A+, A-, B+, and B- terminals to the phase leads (guess at the phases) and try to step slowly.

If the motor does not turn, try swapping one A wire with one B wire, you may have connected the motor phasing wrong. If you have the phasing wrong, the motor will tend to sit there and "wobble" or "buzz".

If the motor turns, but in the wrong direction, you only need to swap the two A wires with each other.

Also:

• Stepper Motor Connection Options All the different ways you can hook your motor up, once you know which wire is what. Compares Unipolar, Bipolar Serial, Bipolar Parallel, Bipolar Single
• Roman Black's Linisteper stepper controller kit Proceeds support PICList.com

Motor wiring diagrams (for reference)

Questions:

• ryan@ylamericanwebinc.com asks:

  I have an older animatics 4 axis unipolar stepper controller and I would like to connect an 8 wire 2 phase Vexta stepper motor to it. The controller has output leads numbered 1-8 with no markings of A,-A,B,-B. Is there any way of testing the driver output leads to know which 8 leads of the motor (A,-A, A,-A, B,-B, B,-B) to connect to the driver leads 1-8?

  James Newton replies: The only idea that comes to mind is to fire up the controller with a set of resistors connected from each output to ground. Then measure what the outputs do after each step pulse is applied. What resistor value to use? I have no idea.

• jbinikos@dslextreme.com asks:

  I have 4 axis Micro Step Motor drive with coil markings A,-A,B,-B. The 8 wire Stepper Motor has markings for Bi-Polar A,-A,-C,
  C,B,-B,-D,D. How do I connect the 8 motor wires to the 4 post of the Driver Board ??