Bipolar motors have a single winding per phase. The current in the winding needs to be reversed in order to reverse a magnetic pole. Therefore, the driving circuit is more complicated and typically utilizes an H-bridge arrangement. Because windings are better utilized, they are more powerful than a unipolar motor of the same size. A unipolar motor has twice the amount of copper wire in the same space, but only half is used at any point in time, hence it is 50% efficient.
Unipolar stepper motor
A unipolar stepper motor has two windings per phase, one for each direction of magnetic field. Since in this arrangement a magnetic pole can be reversed without switching the direction of current, the commutation circuit can be made very simple (eg. a single transistor) for each winding. Typically, given a phase, one end of each winding is made common: giving three leads per phase and six leads for a typical two phase motor. Often, these two phase commons are internally joined, so the motor has only five leads.
A microcontroller or stepper motor controller can be used to activate the drive transistors in the right order, and this ease of operation makes unipolar motors popular with hobbyists; they are probably the cheapest way to get precise angular movements.
(For the experimenter, one way to distinguish common wire from a coil-end wire is by measuring the resistance. Resistance between common wire and coil-end wire is always half of what it is between coil-end and coil-end wires. This is because there is twice the length of coil between the ends and only half from center (common wire) to the end.) A quick way to determine if the stepper motor is working is to short circuit every two pairs and try turning the shaft, whenever a higher than normal resistance is felt, it indicates that the circuit to the particular winding is closed and that the phase is working.
Bipolar stepper motor
Bipolar stepper motors have a single winding per phase. The current in a winding needs to be reversed in order to reverse a magnetic pole, so the driving circuit must be more complicated, typically with an H-bridge arrangement (however there are several off the shelf driver chips available to make this a simple affair). There are two leads per phase, none are common.
Because windings are better utilized, they are more powerful than a unipolar motor of the same weight. This is due to the physical space occupied by the windings. A unipolar motor has twice the amount of wire in the same space, but only half used at any point in time, hence is 50%efficient (or approximately 70% of the torque output available). Though bipolar is more complicated to drive, the abundance of driver chip means this is much less difficult to achieve.
Comparing Wiring Options for Stepper Motors
| Wiring | Motor Wires | Connections | Resistance in Ohms | Inductance in millineries | Current in Amperes | Voltage in Volts | Holding Torque |
| Unipolar | 4 | not an option | |||||
| 5 | Common wire to + power, then A+,A-,B+,B-to unipolar driver | ||||||
| 6 | Short common A to common B, connect common wires to + power, then A+,A-,B+,B-to unipolar driver | as rated | as rated | as rated | as rated | as rated | |
| 8 | Connect A coils in series (A+’ to A-‘), and B coils in series (B+’ to B-‘), short the center between A to the center between B (A+’/A-‘ to B+’/B-‘), connect all those center wires to+ power, then A+,A-,B+,B- to unipolar driver | ||||||
| Bipolar-Series | 4 | A+,A-,B+,B- to bipolar driver | |||||
| 5 | not an option | ||||||
| 6 | Common A and common B are held apart and not connected to anything. A+,A-,B+,B-to bipolar driver with 41% higher voltage than the motor rating. | twice the rated value | 4 times the rated value | 0.707 * rated | 1.414 * rated | 1.414 * rated | |
| 8 | Connect A coils in series (A+’ to A-‘), and B coils in series (B+’ to B-‘), then A+,A-,B+,B-to bipolar driver with 41% higher voltage than the motor rating. | ||||||
| Bipolar-Half Coil | 4 | not an option, unless wired internally by mfgr (very rare) | |||||
| 5 | not an option | ||||||
| 6 | not an option | as rated | as rated | as rated | as rated | as rated | |
| 8 | Only one A coil and one B coil are connected. A+,A+’,B+,B+’ to bipolar driver (A-, A-‘, B-, B-‘, are held apart, disconnected from everything) | ||||||
| Bipolar-Parallel | 4 | not an option, unless wired internally by mfgr | |||||
| 5 | not an option | ||||||
| 6 | not an option | half the rated value | as rated | 1.414 * rated | 0.707 * rated | 1.414 * rated | |
| 8 | A coils in parallel (A+ to A-, A+’ to A-‘), B coils in parallel (B+ to B-, B+’ to B-‘), each set (A+/A-, A+’/A-‘, B+/B-, B+’/B-‘) to bipolar driver with 41% more current capacity than the motor rating. |
An 8-lead stepper is wound like a unipolar stepper, but the leads are not joined to common internally to the motor. This kind of motor can be wired in several configurations:
- Unipolar.
- Bipolar with series windings. This gives higher inductance but lower current per winding. Bipolar with parallel windings. This requires higher current but can perform better as the winding inductance is reduced.
- Bipolar with a single winding per phase. This method will run the motor on only half the available windings, which will reduce the available low speed torque but require less current.