That would be correct, a full-step drive gives the theoretical maximum possible torque at higher speeds (above 4 revolutions per second and faster). This advantage is about 20% to 30% over a half-step drive or a standard microstep drive for the reasons I mentioned. Of course full-step drives are miserable from zero to 2 revolutions per second because of severe vibration (low-speed resonance). This alone is enough to eliminate them from serious consideration despite their high speed advantage.
I class a half-step drive as microstepping, specifically a 2 microstep drive. Low-speed resonance decreases with the square of microsteps used so a half-step drive has only 25% the resonance of a full-step drive (1 divided by 2 squared is 1/4 or 25%). At 10 microsteps, resonance is only 1% of a full-step drive (1 / 10^2 is 1/100 or 1%). It would take an infinite microstep drive to eliminate that remaining 1%.:-)
I don't want to hijack this thread so I'm reluctant to talk about a particular manufacturer's drive performance (ours). I'll just say ours morphs to a full-step drive when the motor speed is high enough to no longer benifit from microstepping. It's a 'have your cake and eat it too' situation.
Mariss  |