running stepper motor with capacitor

[andy1942]

Hi,
 I have a nema 17 bipolar 12v 1.2a four wire stepper motor that I want to use as a continuous motor to drive a turntable, using a 5A power supply. I have watched vids on youtube using capacitors and for ease that would be perfect. I have tried various capacitors but with no luck. Can anyone help or tried this before and tell me the size of capacitors I need please.

[Benta]

An audio turntable? 
But no, you can't drive a stepper motor with capacitors. You need a real controller.

[CaptDon]

The best you could hope for is a stepper controller that allows PWM stepping and hope for several hundred steps per revolution. On top of that you would probably want belt drive to dampen the 'per step acceleration wobble' along with a hefty inertial weighted platter. Servo motors (two pole rotor / 3 pole stator) can be made to spin on A.C. with a capacitor phase shift. I am not sure a stepper motor would reliably start or run at a controlled speed with a capacitor. More of a novelty than a useful predictable outcome.

[Doctorandus_P]

Contrary to what Benta wrote, this should work.

The Ideal excitation for a 2-phase bipolar stepper motor are two sine waves with a 90 degree phase difference between them. This means you should use the biggest capacitor you can find to approximate this 90 degree phase difference. I'm thinking about a bipolar electrolytic of a few thousand uF. You can also put two "regular" electrolytic capacitors back to back to prevent AC leakage, but I don't know how long that will hold.

As you don't have a real controller in this case, you will have to limit the voltage to the motor to prevent overcurrent and over heating.

Most common are the 200 steps/revolution motors, which would result in 1 revolution per second with a 50Hz input signal.

I wonder why it does not work for you. Do you have a schematic? What sort of capacitors did you use? Which youtube video's did you see?