<p>Can I use three-phase stepper motors with pololu style stepper drivers? If not, what kind of drivers support three-phase motors?</p>

[{'answer_id': 10028, 'author': 'Mick', 'author_id': 3953, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/3953', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>3D printers typically use bipolar two-phase stepper motors, and it is possible that Pololu-style carriers for stepper-motor drivers only support such motors.</p>\n\n<p>Certainly, drivers for three-phase stepper motors exist, for example, the Trinamic TMC5062, but I cannot find any Pololu-style carriers for this chip. Even if a Pololu-style carrier can be sourced, it is not certain that existing 3D-printer firmware can be configured to control it.</p>\n\n<p>If you are thinking about re-purposing some three-phase motors, I would advise that you purchase standard bipolar motors, instead. Bipolar two-phase motors suitable for 3D printing are not that expensive.</p>\n\n<p><a href="http://www.trinamic.com/fileadmin/assets/Support/Appnotes/AN030-TMC5062_3_Phase_Motor.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Trinamic TMC5062</a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 10062, 'author': 'cmm', 'author_id': 2082, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/2082', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Three phase stepper motors are superior in several ways: <a href="http://www.fullingmotorusa.com/the-new-range-of-3-phase-stepper-motors/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">see this advertising literature.</a>  Unfortunately for using this with simple stepper drivers, they have an extra coil of wire that simple drivers have no way to control.  Two phase motors have two isolated coils, while three phase motors have three coils connected in a star configuration.</p>\n\n<p>Texas Instruments offers this design suggestion for using three-phase motors: <a href="http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/tiducn7/tiducn7.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">TI White Paper</a>.  Ultimately, it is driven by three synchronized PWM signals connected to three H-bridges, each driving one of the three motor wires.  One could build a board with a micro-controller that accepted step and direction pulses and output the three-phase drive.  At that level, you could substitute the micro-control-plus-H-bridge board for the Pololu-style driver in an existing 3D printer framework.  You would need to configure the steps-per-mm correctly for the new drive system.  </p>\n\n<p>If you did this, and the sales literature is correct, you should get quieter operation with higher torque.  How that would affect operation would depend on the torque of the motor, the rotating mass of the motor, and the gearing or belt drive you use.  </p>\n\n<p>Like two-phase motors, high torque at high speed requires driving the motor with a voltage much higher than the "specified" steady-state motor voltage.</p>\n'}]
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