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Stepper motor?

I took apart a cd rom writeter, an old lite-on, that no longer works. The whole laser assembly is on to metal shafts, with a 3rd shaft that sorta looks like a screw, when i spin the screw shaft the whole laser assembly moves either up or down the other two metal shafts. the screw shaft is attached to a small circular motor, about the size of a penny, and half an inch deep. It has 4 leads. Is this a stepper motor? How would i get more information to make it usable. Ive never used a motor before, so any help would be great. I would be using a atmel 89c2051 to interface with it.

Reply to
Kolie Kay
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Yup! Thaaat's a stepper!

It sounds like it might be a bipolar - does it have two circles stacked on top of each other with two wires coming out of each? Doesn't really matter if it does or not, but chances are it works something like this:

One pair of wires (use an ohmeter to figure out which pairs are connected - it'll be low resistance, but not 0) gets energized, probably 5 Volts. The polarity now reverses. Those are your first two steps. Then the other pair is energized, then the polarity reversed, then back to step one.

I don't mess with steppers often enough to remember the wire colour codes, but I think there is a convention to them. I always just wind up experimenting. Put a mark on the drive shaft, then figure out the step sequence. It can take a while.

Good luck with that! Ian

Kolie Kay wrote:

Reply to
Ian A. Juby

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