It’s little secret that stepper motors are in every single place in FDM 3D printers, however there’s no actual motive why you can not take one other sort of DC motor like a brushless DC (BLDC) motor and use that as a substitute. Curiously, some printer producers are actually utilizing BLDCs for locations the place the discount in weight issues, akin to within the device head or extruder, but when a BLDC might be ‘stepped’ very like any stepper motor, then why desire one over the opposite? That is the subject of a latest video by [Thomas Sanladerer], with the reply being principally about price, and ‘ok’ options.
The referenced driving technique of field-oriented management (FOC), which additionally goes by the identify of vector management, is a VFD management technique wherein the controller can pretty exactly hold place very like a stepper motor, however with out the comparatively advanced building of a stepper motor. One other benefit is that FOC tends to make use of much less energy than alternate options.
Utilizing a FOC controller with a BLDC is demonstrated within the video, which additionally covers the closed-loop nature of such a configuration, whereas a stepper motor is mostly pushed in an open-loop vogue. In the end the reply at this level is that whereas stepper motors are ‘ok’ for duties the place their comparatively giant measurement and weight aren’t actual points, as BLDCs with FOC or comparable turns into extra economical, we may even see issues change there.
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