Printer Steppers

[rb765]

In my quest for a small mill out of recycled parts, I obtained a laser Fax for it's motors. The first looked fine like a standard 4 wire stepper motor but with only a 2 hole mount. The second looked like a large brushless motor. When turned, it also feels like a brushless, not a stepper. Is this second motor usable for a small CNC project, or do I need to keep scrounging?

[TCarey]

Probably need to keep looking.

I'm also building a scrounged parts mill for PCB's.

I have decided to use 5 1/4 " floppy drives for both the motors and the control electronics. 5 1/4 " floppy drives have NEMA 17 sized motors and the existing electronics board is set up to accept step and direction signals. And as an added bonus, uses standard computer power supplies.

That solves a lot of issues in fell swoop.

Now on to the problems of tables and bearings etc.

Tom

[rb765]

Thanks for that info. I think I have access to a few of them.

[James Newton]

Certain laser printers and copiers are excellent sources of even larger stepper motors. There is a list at:
techref.massmind.org/techref/io/stepper/linistep/motors.htm which you may find useful.

Also:
cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=136761 HP LaserJet II stepper motors.
cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19362 Raiders of the Lost Photocopiers

[rb765]

Thanks for that info. I will be scrapping a few more printers in the next few days for my job. They didn't say they had to be complete when they made it to the trash. Hopefully I will be able to start on my machine build this weekend, so I will be able to take all this theory stuff and put it into action. Wish me luck.

[James Newton]

Let us know what you find!? Printer model and stepper model.

[rb765]

The one I tore apart was a Brother Intellifax 2820. There were only two motors in the thing, one was a large brushless motor, and the other was a small bi-polar stepper with 4 wires. The only numbers on it were 039213 with no brand or other specs. I will be tearing apart a HP inkjet and an Apollo inkjet. I also will be scrapping several 9v battery chargers that charge about a dozen batteries at a time, and an old dictophone power supply with outputs for 12v, 5v, and -5v. I believe it only puts out 2amps total, so it may not be of use for a mill, but might have some nice parts to use elsewhere.