I have laying around the shop, a nema 23, arduino and TB6600 stepper driver from an old project. I now have a need for a constant rpm, up to 200 rpm would be fine, that won't have a lot of torwue requirement.
Is this a suitable arrangement, or should I just get a regular motor? I just hate having things laying around that might work....
I think the speed should be possible - you will probably need to accelerate up to that speed.
However you can't control the torque of a stepper motor in the way that you can with a DC motor so if gentle action is required it may not be appropriate. The torque of a stepper motor is part of its design. The better manufacturers post graphs of torque at different speeds.
Depends if you can live with the vibration? NEMA23 is big and power hungry and doesn't do
low torque, so its not an ideal choice. You can run steppers at reduced current for much
lower power consumption, this might a circumstance to try finding out the limits. You might only need
a small stepper driver like a DRV8825, if at lower current.