tiny steppers from DVD drive

Aug 16, 2010 2 Replies

I always hear small steppers appropriate for hobby robotics use may be extracted from CD or DVD drives. I wonder where the CD/DVD drive manufacturers source their motors? I tried just googling brushless motors and the results returned are always a fairly large motor requiring a fairly high voltage at a fairly expensive price, but there's got to be something much smaller for a buck given how cheaply DVD drives are selling?


Do you mean steppers, or Brushless DC (BLDC) motor drives?

Thanks! I have a project requiring both a small stepper and a small brushless. I think the DVD spindle is a brushless servo, but not sure about the tracking movement for the laser pickup. Extracting parts is a great idea for prototype but if I succeed I would like the ability to productize it in the 1,000 range.

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