Know about NEMA 17 stepper motor

This is my new NEMA 17 stepper motor which I purchased from a local shop. NEMA stands for National Electrical Manufacturers Association, which standardized motor sizes using certain criteria. It seems that the largest size being currently manufactured is NEMA 42! There are unipolar and bipolar stepper motors and which need different types of control circuits. While the control can be done by microcontrollers like Arduino Nano, they need external power. That is because they need much more power than that can be supplied by the digital pins of Arduino. One step of this stepper motor is 1.8 degrees so that one full revolution will have 200 steps. Position of a stepper motor can be judged without the need for an additional position sensor as in case of an amateur radio antenna.

NEMA 17 has faceplate dimensions of approximately 1.7 x 1.7 inches. DRV8825 and A4988 are drivers which can be used for NEMA 17 stepper motor. DRV8825 needs a heat sink if the current needed is more than 1.5A per coil. DRV8825 can be used with Arduino, ESP8266, ESP32 and Raspberry Pico.