Hi all,
I have an adafruit NEMA 17 stepper motor and a adafruit motor shield v2.3, powered by a 12v battery. It is supposed to be lifting a small door for a chicken coop in the morning and lowering it in the evening. To test the program, I left the circuit powered all day to see if the motor moved when needed. It did but by the end of the day it was very hot and uncomfortable to touch even though there wasn’t any load on it. Is this normal or is something wrong?
Any advice would be appreciated
Yes, stepper motors are powered weather or not they are moving and the current flowing through them will heat them up.
If you want to reduce the amount of heat, you need to either power the motor down when you’re not using it, or reduce the amount of current your driver supplies to the motor. If there isn’t a way to reduce the current through the driver, lowering the voltage to the driver can help.
Stepper motors are generally designed to be powered continuously and to run hot. It is not uncommon for them to be too hot to touch.
Since they are so energy inefficient, steppers are a poor choice for something like raising the door of a chicken house. A brushed DC gearmotor would be a much better choice.
Ok thanks, just wanted to make sure I wasn’t damaging my motor.