Stepper Torque question

[Mars-Sojourner]

Hello all. Hope all is well.

I am learning about stepper motors and I am running a stepper motor with a regular amazon.com motor driver and an Arduino.

When I hold the shaft of the motor while it is rotating, it stops rotating and makes a high pitch whining sound till I turn off the power. ( The stepper doesnt go back to rotating when I left go the shaft.)

These are my questions for you guys:

1. Is the motor showing symptoms of stalling? Is this what stalling is?

2. Is there something that I can do in my Arduino code to help the motor go back to rotating when I let go the shaft? ( Maybe increase steps or decrease steps? )

3. Is the motor trying to step way too fast?

Thank you for your replies!

[Railroader]

Yes, that motor stalled while the demand for torque exceeded the motor capacity.
Stop the pulsing and start from zero.
The faster the stepping is the more difficult it is for the motor to start rotating.

[groundFungus]

Your Amazon link does not show a stepper motor. In order to best help you we need to know exactly what stepper motor and motor driver that you have.

@Railroader is right. If you try to step the motor too fast it will have little torque and may not rotate.

A couple tutorials that may be of interest.
stepper basics
simple stepper code (for testing).

[dave-in-nj]

A stepper motor is like running.
You start slow and build up rhythm.

You cannot just start at high speed.

And missing steps like you did hurt your nerves but not the motor