I have a bunch of stepper motors from printers, etc

[gunsmoker]

I pulled a lot of stepper motors from thrift store rejects and I don't have any use for them. I went as far as researching to find the differences between unipolar and bipolar, built simple circuits without programmable chips just to get them to move a notch at a time forward and backward using a rotary encoder. I can see the potential of this for moving a security camera back and forth, up and down but there are probably better ways to do that. I also saw several little CNC machines on sites like Instructables but I am not into programming and can't think of anything really useful to do with that anyway. So I'm wondering what some of you are doing with these? I have some big some tiny and many in between sizes of these motors. Some look cheap and some look robust. Just some insight into what practical uses other than the aforementioned might steer me into a project or two with them. Otherwise if there is a market for these I'd like to know. A search of eBay was confusing and left me thinking that's no good. Anybody with opinions or advice? Thanks in advance.

 

[Sceadwian]

I can see the potential of this for moving a security camera back and forth, up and down but there are probably better ways to do that.

Define them.

Kick the cheap keep the robust, and if you can't do something useful with the robust than then you best find something else!

 

[gunsmoker]

Define them.

Um, define what?

Kick the cheap keep the robust, and if you can't do something useful with the robust than then you best find something else!

What do you mean "with the robust than then you best find something else!"?

 

[Sceadwian]

Define the better ways to do the things you want.
As far as components go, learning what is crap and what is useful and what your storage space limits are is very important.

 

[gunsmoker]

Define the better ways to do the things you want.
As far as components go, learning what is crap and what is useful and what your storage space limits are is very important.

Well that pretty much tells me nothing I want to know.

 

[Sceadwian]

I would recommend spending the time learning what you want to know then.

 

[gunsmoker]

I would recommend spending the time learning what you want to know then.

Thanks for nothing.

 

[Boncuk]

Thanks for nothing.

I guess the replies weren't "nothing" since you actually didn't ask any question.

It's up to your imagination to decide what you want to do with a stepper motor. Nobody can read inside another's brain to find out what he might be thinking.

It's you who has to make up his mind about what you want to do with those steppers.

As the name already suggests they do not rotate in a steady movement, but perform steps depending on the construction of the motor and the driver circuit.

Very common step widths are 1.8deg/step or 0.9deg/step.

You might connect a driver circuit and a square wave oscillator to make the stepper appear to rotate continuously. If you connect a counter circuit to count clock pulses you might interrupt the clock cycle at any desired rotor position.

Here is an example for a uni-polar stepper motor. A bipolar stepper motor requires two full H-bridges for proper control.

Remark: If you want to control the motor using manual clocking use a 4.7K Ohm pulldown resistor from pin3 of U2:A to ground.

Boncuk

 

[gunsmoker]

I asked:
"What are people doing with these?"
"Is there a market for these?" Like, would anybody want to buy these? And I mentioned I had built simple driver circuits for both unipolar and bipolar. So if you want a better question how about "If I post these for sale on my eBay account what would potential buyers be looking for?".

 

[Boncuk]

People generally use them for CNC machines.

The small ones as used in a 3.5" floppy drive just serve one purpose. They are too weak to drive a CNC spindle under load.

You might try out if you can sell them via ebay.

The small steppers can be reused by connecting a fan wheel on them for a tiny wind generator which produces sufficient power to drive one or two LEDs.

Boncuk

 

[4pyros]

I asked:
"What are people doing with these?"
"Is there a market for these?" Like, would anybody want to buy these? And I mentioned I had built simple driver circuits for both unipolar and bipolar. So if you want a better question how about "If I post these for sale on my eBay account what would potential buyers be looking for?".

Every hobbyist has stripped printers for the motors and drivers. I don't think you will sell alot of used steppers. Have you looked at the ebay statistics?

 

[Sceadwian]

For maybe 1-5 dollar shipping including for even the bigger ones.
Like 4pyros said, anyone that strips printers or components already has a bin of steppers.
I have so many I don't know what to do with what I have! And that doesn't include the 4 printers on my shelf I have yet to gut.

 

[gunsmoker]

Thanks for the last three replies. I had a suspicion it would be no good trying to sell some of these. Yes, I had done some looking on eBay for steppers and saw only big ones for use with CNC. One or two guys are selling small steppers with a minimal driver circuit for $5.00 or so. I've got two gallon jugs and an old boiler pot full and running over with more printers yet to scrap. There are some pretty good sized ones in there I might one day use for low power chargers just for the heck of it. Thanks again.

 

[Sceadwian]

Check with a local recycling center, they may give you something for them, not much but far better than just throwing them out. If you disassemble them yourself into seperate piles of metal you'll get modest amount more for them, but possible not worth the effort.

 

[gunsmoker]

Check with a local recycling center, they may give you something for them, not much but far better than just throwing them out. If you disassemble them yourself into seperate piles of metal you'll get modest amount more for them, but possible not worth the effort.

Thanks. With copper bringing only $2.40 a pound now it's not worth the effort to scrap them. The local recycling yard is a joke -- they won't even take dry cell batteries or glass. But thanks again for the positive ideas.

 

[Gobbledok]

Electric Automatic Curtain/Blind Openers?