How do stepper motors and servo motors work? What are the differences between them? Many people may not be clear about this. By understanding their respective characteristics, we can gradually learn about the obvious differences between servo motors and stepper motors, and thus choose the motor equipment that best suits our needs.
To understand the difference between stepper motors and servo motors, we must first understand their working principles:
1. The working principle of a stepper motor is to convert electrical pulses into angular displacement. When the stepper driver receives a pulse signal, it drives the stepper motor to rotate a fixed angle in a set direction, and its rotation proceeds step by step at fixed angles. The angular displacement can be controlled by controlling the number of pulses, thereby achieving the purpose of displacement control. At the same time, the speed and acceleration of the motor can be controlled by controlling the pulse frequency, thereby achieving the purpose of speed regulation.
2. The rotor inside a servo motor is a permanent magnet. The driver controls the three-phase electricity to create an electromagnetic field. The rotor rotates under the influence of this magnetic field. The motor has an encoder, and the accuracy of the servo motor depends on the resolution of the encoder.
Differences between stepper motors and servo motors:
1. Stepper motors and servo motors have different control methods.
2. Stepper motors typically do not have varying overload capacities. AC servo motors, on the other hand, have very high overload capacities. Because stepper motors lack this overload capacity, they cannot operate in conjunction with stepper motors under certain conditions.
3. Different speed response performance. Compared with stepper motors, AC servo motors have better acceleration performance and can be used in control applications that require rapid start and stop, as well as applications with high positional accuracy requirements.
AC servo systems are generally superior to stepper motors. However, in some less demanding applications, stepper motors are often used as actuators. Therefore, during the design of a control system, various factors such as control requirements and cost should be comprehensively considered to select a suitable control motor.
