Geared Stepper Motor

I just received a new 10-pk of these 28BYJ-48 5VDC stepper motors and tested one to see if maybe a different manufacturer would use a slightly different gear ratio, some being 4096:1 and some being 4075.7728... I set the stepper motor sketch up so that it rotates for 4076 steps, pauses for 3 seconds, then repeats; a period of about 15.3 seconds. Depending on which ratio is in the gear box it either exceeds a revolution by 0.22271 steps or it is short a revolution by 20.2271... steps. If the gear ratio is 74075.7728.. the paused point of the shaft will precess one revolution in 79 hours. If the gear ratio is 4096:1 then the pause should precess in the other direction and make one revolution in 51 minutes. Right now it's on course for about a 79 hour precession. There may be another source of these motors with a 4096:1 ratio. If you know of one; let me know.

Dave

I can't believe there are so many motors that are not 4096:1. Why?
Does anyone else have the 4096 ratio?

I only just got my Uno a week or so ago, so I'm still somewhat new to this. I ordered a kit from ebay with a 5v 28BYJ48 stepper included. It didn't come with a data sheet, but it seemed similar to the others online.

I tested it as accurately as I could with no tools and some arduino codes (mostly the oneRevolution example) and for it to do a full revolution with the standard stepper.h library, I have to use "2046" as my stepsPerRevolution value. I assume the way I have it wired means it's doing full steps vs half steps or something, but even doubling that would result in 4092 instead of 4096. Additionally, when I use setSpeed(2), it seems to take about 28 seconds rather than 30 to complete a full circle.

Any help with this would be fantastic, though I know it's not the point of this thread. But my motor does have an unusual number of steps to go full circle. I haven't tested to see if it's exactly one circle, nor have I opened it to check the gear ratios, but hopefully it helps.

sbright33,

I popped off the face of a 28BYJ I had and found the following:

I highlighted the gear teeth with a red dot and show the teeth/gear. My gear ratio is:
(31322622)/(111099) = 283712/4455 = 25792/405 = 63.68395... If anyone can show 64:1 please similarly pop the face and count teeth. Can anyone find anything but the above ratio of gear teeth. The face is replaceable with a little added Vaseline inside. All motors I've seen pictures of have three intermediate shafts (the shaft ends show through the case) for a total of 4 gear reductions. It is conceivable that someone may have (40402020)/(10101010) = 64 or similar. Yes, there is some slop in the nylon gears but I'm using it for a clock so I'm only driving it in one direction. I am driving it many revolutions so I do need to know the ratio precisely. If someone can show me a 64:1 eBay gear source I'd be delighted! Right now for me the total number of steps are (64 * 25792)/405 = 4075.7728395... Therefore I step 4075 steps for one revolution and add an additional step every 313 out of 405 revolutions (313/405 = 0.7728395.. the decimal remainder of 4075.772...). Unfortunately I make an array named correction[404] = {1,0,1,1,1,0,.... 0,1,1,1} to decide if a correction step is needed. It's messy but it keeps the second hand pointing up at 12 o'clock.

I have bought a number of these motors from different vendors. All of them are 4096. I would notice if it was 4076, a 20 step difference. My code does 4096 steps quickly then pauses for 5 seconds. It stops in the same place even after hours of running. I don't doubt your picture or you counting Stolfa. My question is this:

Why would someone design it with 4075.772 steps???

Because they were just used to designing gear trains, not gear trains for open-loop motion control?

AFAIK these motors are made specifically to steer airflow in air conditioning systems, which is the
reason they are so cheap and why exact gear ratios aren't part of the original specifications I suspect.

4096 steps sounds great but the gear train backlash means a standard stepper motor with microstepping
controller probably outperforms this motor - except in price!

I totally agree with MarkT.
For me, the main problem of this motor is its backslash: it make "vibrate" anything you attach to the shaft even if you rotate only in one direction (anyway, any stepper motor has some backslash, but in this motor it is exagerated by the great play of the gears).

But its advantage is so high: a really reduced price ...

If anyone knows of one, please post an eBay vendor name that sells a 5V 28BYJ stepper motor with a 4096 steps/revolution rather than the 4075.722... that all mine show. I would love to find a 4096 step source. The three different orders I've made all exhibit 4075+.

I understand. Ask Terry his email is at the bottom.

http://yourduino.com/LearnArduino1.htm

Other than this design, is there another cheap source with gears? I have some with 16:1 that look the same from the outside. How can you get 4096 steps without gears? If speed is not a concern, even with backlash, how can you beat it? Most cheap steppers are about 1 deg/step?

Ah! Finally an explanation as to why some users of this stepper cound not attain the hoped for results as sbright33 and others got in getting it to do a precise full revolution in 4096 steps. I too would like to know of a source for these steppers that for sure have 4096 steps per revolution. - Scotty

I can fix my code to work with 4075+. All I'd need is a motor to test it. Already the code is able to rotate by 0.36 x 1000 to make a full revolution. Notice the step size is not even close to a multiple of 0.36 degrees. The only disadvantage is the need for floats the way it is written. Who wants it?

I guess nobody wants to rotate exactly 1 revolution...

sbright33,

Sorry, I haven't checked this forum in a while. Please contact me with an offline message with your address and I'll send you a 4075+ motor.

Stolfa

Hi

What happened to this issue?

I just ended up in trouble with my 28BYJ-48 and realized that I have the same issue as some of you.

Did you ever managed to find a motor with an even number of steps per revolution?

Sbright33,

I think you had received one of my 28BYJ stepper motors last summer. Any luck at checking it's steps/rev?

Dave

hi everyone, I've recently bought 28BYJ-48 5V DC stepper motor from china for my school project. I chose this motor only because it's cheap.

The gear ratio doesn't have to be exactly 64:1 for me, because I won't use them where the precision is important. Nevertheless because of sheer curiosity, I opened up one of them and count the gears. It was a painstaking process thanks to teeny tiny plastic teeth.
I took some photos to use zoom option and save my eyes but my average digital camera doesn't come up with nice photos.

So I double checked the numbers and found out exact same numbers with Stolfa;

Main rotor has 9 teeth and connected to 32-11 gear then 9-22 --> 10-26 and finally 31.

(32222631)/(911910) = 63.68395062 (405:25792) which is NOT acceptable for precise applications. I don't know why the manufacturer uses these gears instead of using some others to achive 1:64 ratio. Is it difficult to find or produce plastic gears with different teeth numbers?

Now I understand why quality stepper motors are expensive. At least they meet the spesifications manufacturers provide.

Hello,

I don't understand why this motor wouldn't be a good help for precision projects. First of all, reductors are based on "mutually prime" gears, to distribute wear evenly. But, more, there is NO ideal reduction factor: by exemple, in watchmaking, what i f i want to cut a 47 teeth gear ?
One can, i think, approach any angle with desired accuracy with this step-motor, eventually by running it more than one "complete" turn. I shall calculate the number of steps and turns with this goal of minimum error, modulo 2pi, or modulo 6463.75 etc

Sorry for my poor english.
Regards

ozgr:
(32222631)/(911910) = 63.68395062 (405:25792) which is NOT acceptable for precise applications. I don't know why the manufacturer uses these gears instead of using some others to achive 1:64 ratio. Is it difficult to find or produce plastic gears with different teeth numbers?

The motor is made specifically for steering vanes inside
vehicle air-conditioning units, its not designed to be very precise
(the backlash is large, for instance), its designed to be easy to drive from
a 5V control circuit and just powerful enough to do the job. The large
gear ratio is to increase the torque to resist forces on the vanes more
than anything.

Its very cheap because its made in 10^8 quantities probably.

I think, one thing that has been completely overlooked in this thread is the frequency of your Arduino. If anyone has programmed a millis clock will know the problem you run into. Not all Arduinos run at exactly the same speed, close, but not exact.

The Duemilanova came as standard with a 16MHz quartz crystal, so it could be
used to determine accurate times and frequencies.

The Uno comes with a cheap 16MHz ceramic resonator, only accurate to 0.5% or
something like that. My Uno had space to solder on a quartz crystal in place of
the resonator so I did that, as sometimes you want accurate time.

This is a bit of a step back IMO. I hope the recent versions of the Uno allow such
a repair job to be performed...