parallel vs series

[miro]

Can anyone tell me should I go for 4, 6 or 8 wire steppers for a given torque. What can I gain from wiring 6 and 8 steppers in parallel bipolar or series bipolar comparing to 4 wire stepper.

[mcpltd]

6 Wire is unipolar or bipolar 4 wire series. (Full coil or half coil)
Full coil is good for for slow speed and half coil is good for high speeds.
Unipolar will give a lower performance than bipolar.

Series is good if you want high torque at low speeds, but the torque will drop of fast at higher speed.
Parallel is low torque at low speeds, but the torque does not drop off as quick as series, so is far better if you are running the motor fast.

Originally Posted by miro Can anyone tell me should I go for 4, 6 or 8 wire steppers for a given torque. What can I gain from wiring 6 and 8 steppers in parallel bipolar or series bipolar comparing to 4 wire stepper.

[miro]

OK, but what about eight wire steppers, what bothers me is the diference between half coil connected 6 wire stepper and 8 wire parallel conected stepper. Firstly I understood that this is the same thing, but now I am looking at Stepper motor basics by Gecko and it seems to me like a complete two diferent things. Or am I missing something

[jeffs555]

With 8 wire parallel, you can generally increase the current to 1.4 times the half coil current. This would give 1.4 times the static torque.