Improve Performance Further with 3 Advanced Stepper Motor Driver Features

There are many stepper motor manufacturers in the market place, but there are even more stepper motor driver manufacturers. The crowded market place provides many standard product options for customers to build their motion control system just the way they like it.

However, if the best possible performance is desired, it would be difficult to beat a tested combination of a specific motor and driver from the same manufacturer. By combining R&D knowledge from both motors and drivers, unique product features can be developed to improve performance further.

In this post, we discuss 3 main features of the CVD stepper motor drivers that were designed to improve the performance of stepper motors: stable torque output even when microstepping, high efficiency components for high current output, and why buying both motors and drivers from the same manufacturer is better. There's also a video at the bottom of this post that summarizes the features.

ADVANTAGE 1: Consistent Torque Output Even When Microstepping

Microstepping is a driver function that electrically subdivides the full step angle of a stepper motor in order to increase resolution or decrease vibration and noise. Traditionally, inconsistent torque output or position accuracy are problems resulting from microstepping. Due to individual motor phase current detectors as well as sine wave current drive technology, the CVD drivers can regulate torque more precisely even when microstepping.

ADVANTAGE 2: High Efficiency, Low Heat Design

To increase the motor torque, the current from the driver to the motor must be increased. However, increasing the current also increases the operating temperature for the driver, which can limit duty cycle or decrease life of the driver. The CVD drivers utilized a low heat, high efficiency design, which makes it possible to apply a higher current to the motors.

Adoption of more efficient FETs for better heat transfer from the components to the PCB. On resistance of new FETs are 1/20th of conventional FETs.
Improved heat transfer circuit board design helps minimize footprint. No heat sink is required.

Conventional driver temperature distribution

Reduce heat generation, increased torque

With a stepper motor and driver that's rated for higher current, high speed torque can be increased without changing the motor size.

ADVANTAGE 3: Unmatched Performance

The CVD driver offers superior low vibration and noise characteristics by using a new, fully digital, full-time microstepping control circuit. The new microstepping feature reduces the basic step angle to a maximum resolution of 2048. As a result, significantly reduced step vibration in the low speed range is achieved. For the mid speed ranges, the motor vibration has been suppressed, thus enabling more stable torque characteristics.

In general, stop accuracy of stepper motors are worse when microstepping. Stop accuracy can be better due to improved current control from the CVD drivers; even when microstepping.