My friend gave me some stepper motors today, so my project tonight was to take one apart and find out how it worked. I chose the one that had 5 wires, and traced out a wiring schematic. It turns out to be a 5-phase stepper motor! I am eager to test it out, but first I need to order some H-bridge parts so that I can control it.
*Order* an H-bridge? I made one myself last night from raw transistors. Well…I think I did. I made an H-bridge simulator anyway. It only lights LEDs so far. Also, I’ll probably blow out the transistors since I don’t know how to read the datasheet well enough to see what max current they’ll take.
Yeah, just order :-). I figure, they are widely available so I might as well make use of them. I’m also throwing in a bunch of monolithic transistors in case I feel the need to build one instead.
@desiredusername: I ended up choosing the ST L298 drivers, in the leaded package. I also picked up some power FETs.