IDENTIFY THE WIRES OF A FLOPPY DRIVE STEPPER MOTOR

Domain: Understanding the labeling of the wires of a floppy drive stepper motor.

STEPPER MOTOR IN A FLOPPY DRIVE

It is possible to use the stepper motors from Floppy drives and CD/DVD Drive from unused left out Drives.

Generally stepper motor are costly, in India the stepper may cost around 250 to 500 rupees, to reduce the cost you can use a stepper motor from a floppy drive.

The stepper motor used for running the disk in the fdd are generally hybrid stepper motor ,in case you want to know what is stepper motor can you can read in Wikipedia, it has detailed description.

Here I will teach you how to use a stepper motor from fdd and identify the motor wires without a multi meter.

As a part of my robotic project I was searching on net about the identification of the stepper motor wires but I didn't find any relevant tutorial, so I had to go through some research work to make it possible.

After 2 days of hit and trial I came out with an understanding of the wire labeling on the stepper motor's in the FDD, and also it went perfectly along with my USB Interface board to generate Full step and half step on the stepper motor which I fetched from an unused FDD. so here is a tutorial to study the labeling, and to understand the stepper motor wire in the Floppy Drives.

Introduction

The stepper motor in the FDD are standard Hybrid stepper motor, it is used for rotating the FDD disk in clock-wire and anticlockwise. The stepper motor used in the FDD are generally hybrid stepper motor.

Steps

1- Carefully remove the covering of the floppy drive.

2- Find the central motor (the flat big circular disc).

3- De solder the wire connected to the stepper motor.

4- Search for the wires labeling U,V,W,COMM,these are the four wires for the controlling.

The comm wire states for the common terminal, rest the sequence of the wire goes as UVW, the arrangement of the wire may be ordered irregular, don’t confuse with that, the ordering will always be u v w

The control signal to the wire goes as follows.

Comm common power

U 100

V 010

W 001

The comm wires is the common power supply. For controlling the stepper motor USB or PARALLEL port can be used.i ma not going into the details in the how to run the stepper motor from a p.c but I am explaining the labeling and identification part.

Thus with just labeling on the motor you can figure out the wire.

Now

HERE IS A PICTURE TUTORIAL

Step1.

Remove case and turn back remove the motor

Step2:

Remove the stepper motor.

Step3

Remove the wire using a soldering iron.

Check out for the labeling

U, V, W, COMM after removing the wires.

Step4

Use a magnifier

After the identification is over you can attach some wire to the labeling for further easy handling and wiring to the board.

The stepper motor can be then run in several ways, you can get some cheap kits or boards from store for running or you can use your computer for running it from either an USB or parallel port.
OR you can use one of my Project USB INTERFACE BOARD using PIC18F4550 to run stepper motor and any Hardware you want from Computer

I am not going further in details of to run the stepper motor, because here in this tutorial I am just explaining how to understand the labeling. keep reading for further more posts.

NEXT >> CD DVD Stepper Motor Wires

Thanks for Reading
Rakesh Mondal Ron

-USB Stepper Motor Driver
-Stepper Motor Driver Using PIC18F4550
-Stepper Motor Driver Tutorials
-USB Interface Board

For more and Questions Please Visit My personal Website

www.rakeshmondal.info