Small stepper motor - PF35T-48 REALLY Hot

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tboy
 
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Small stepper motor - PF35T-48 REALLY Hot

Post by tboy »

I'm a newbie working on a small motor project. I had some old hobby servos, but bought the two different sized steppers from adafruit and the motor shield. I've been pretty successful, stepping and spinning, but last night I put on the small stepper for the first time. I ran it a bit, forward and back fro about 5 minutes and it was REALLY hot. Like hot enough to not hold it after a few seconds.

Is this normal? I'm using a 12V power supply, that can handle 1 amp or so. This is just an arduino, motor shield, and the motor, no load.

Thanks!

Tboy

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Small stepper motor - PF35T-48 REALLY Hot

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

Steppers do get pretty hot - even when not moving because at least two coils are always energized in most operating modes.
You are running it at the upper end of its rated drive voltage range, so you can expect it to get quite hot.
That motor is rated for operation up to 50C ambient temperature with a 55C temeprature rise. In other words, it is designed to operate at over 100C (212F).

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tboy
 
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Re: Small stepper motor - PF35T-48 REALLY Hot

Post by tboy »

WOW! I did poke around on the data page but didn't think to look at the temp ranges. That is hot!

Thanks for the help! I'll post my project soon when I get the mechanical bits done. Thanks to your tutorials and such, I've got most of my code working, even though it is probably not very elegant, it does the job. Looking forward to getting some feedback on it later.

Tboy

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