Please Help With Stepper Motor Control

With salvaged parts from printers and the like, you will get a varied number and type of motors, probably 2 stepper motors and 2 or three regular DC motors (Three all technically DC motors).

The steppers will have 4 or 6 or 8 wires going into them, the regular motors typically just the two. if you rotate the shaft of a stepper you will also "feel" the steps compared to a simple motor.

The printer DOES include stepper drivers on board but the work to remove or isolate them is probably beyond a beginner skill level, better off getting a motor control board for an Arduino or something, there are many to choose from.

If the stepper has only 4 wires then you will need a FULL H Bridge capable controller

If the stepper has 6 wires then you have a choice between the full H Bride or the simpler ULN2003 type control (If the motor is low powered then this would be ok, if not, again there are loads of boards available for this.

If the motor has 8 wires then you have many options, including all of the above.

Basically there are two ways to drive a stepper. Bi-Polar where you use an H Bridge, and Unipolar where you simply ground each leg of the coils in a sequence.

BiPolar is more complex but provide for more torque at low end of speed.

If your printer is a typical desktop home style then there will be limited power available for a CNC (With router type cutting involved) so even if it worked it would quickly prove to be needing upgrading. As an educational process this is perfectly ok.

If you building a 3D printer style CNC then the steppers should be ok for most common sizes.

To clarify my use of the term CNC. CNC means "Computer Numeric Control", a Robot Arm, 3D printer, A CNC Router, A Laser Cutter, A XY Plotter, A Laser Etching machine are all specific examples of CNC machines, these days though, people automatically think of a CNC as being the CNC Router (Rotary Cutter) type of machine. It really only refers to any process where is numeric control using a computer is used.

With salvaged parts from printers and the like, you will get a varied number and type of motors, probably 2 stepper motors and 2 or three regular DC motors (Three all technically DC motors).

The steppers will have 4 or 6 or 8 wires going into them, the regular motors typically just the two. if you rotate the shaft of a stepper you will also "feel" the steps compared to a simple motor.

The printer DOES include stepper drivers on board but the work to remove or isolate them is probably beyond a beginner skill level, better off getting a motor control board for an Arduino or something, there are many to choose from.

If the stepper has only 4 wires then you will need a FULL H Bridge capable controller

If the stepper has 6 wires then you have a choice between the full H Bride or the simpler ULN2003 type control (If the motor is low powered then this would be ok, if not, again there are loads of boards available for this.

If the motor has 8 wires then you have many options, including all of the above.

Basically there are two ways to drive a stepper. Bi-Polar where you use an H Bridge, and Unipolar where you simply ground each leg of the coils in a sequence.

BiPolar is more complex but provide for more torque at low end of speed.

If your printer is a typical desktop home style then there will be limited power available for a CNC (With router type cutting involved) so even if it worked it would quickly prove to be needing upgrading. As an educational process this is perfectly ok.

If you building a 3D printer style CNC then the steppers should be ok for most common sizes.

To clarify my use of the term CNC. CNC means "Computer Numeric Control", a Robot Arm, 3D printer, A CNC Router, A Laser Cutter, A XY Plotter, A Laser Etching machine are all specific examples of CNC machines, these days though, people automatically think of a CNC as being the CNC Router (Rotary Cutter) type of machine. It really only refers to any process where is numeric control using a computer is used.