Stepper Motor Driver / Controller Options
Motor Frame Size Compatibility
Our stepper controllers are designed to drive motors from small NEMA frame sizes up to NEMA 42, covering everything from compact, low-torque pump drives through to high-torque industrial applications. Controllers are matched to the motor's electrical characteristics — winding inductance, current rating, and back-EMF — rather than treating stepper drive as one-size-fits-all across frame sizes.
Voltage and Current Range
Controllers support supply voltages up to 48V, with current ratings tailored to the motor and application. Higher bus voltages allow faster step rates and better high-speed torque, which is particularly relevant for pump applications where flow rate is directly tied to step frequency.
Open-Loop and Closed-Loop Control
We offer both open-loop and closed-loop stepper control, and help clients choose the right approach for their application rather than defaulting to one:
- Open-loop control — the standard, lower-cost approach, suitable for applications where load is predictable and step loss is not a significant risk. Simpler to implement and commission.
- Closed-loop control — incorporating position/encoder feedback to detect and correct for missed steps, stalls, or load-induced position error in real time. This is particularly valuable in pump applications where load can vary (viscosity changes, tubing wear in peristaltic pumps, back-pressure variation) and where losing synchronisation would mean inaccurate dosing or flow.
Microstepping Resolution
Microstep resolution up to 1/256 step is supported, allowing extremely fine control over motor position and significantly smoother, quieter running than full- or half-step drive. Finer microstepping reduces mechanical resonance and audible noise — both important considerations in pump applications, particularly peristaltic pumps where step-induced vibration can affect tubing life and flow smoothness. Microstep resolution is configurable to match the application: coarser stepping where speed matters more than resolution, finer stepping where positional accuracy and smooth flow are the priority.
Form Factor: Piggyback, Integrated, or Panel Mount
We offer stepper controllers in multiple physical configurations, selected based on how the controller needs to integrate into the client's product:
- Piggyback drivers — mounted directly onto the rear of the motor, minimising cabling and footprint while keeping the controller physically and thermally coupled to the motor it's driving
- Fully integrated solutions — controller and motor combined into a single assembly, designed for products where a separate controller housing isn't practical or desirable
- Panel-mount controllers — housed separately and mounted within an enclosure or control panel, connected to the motor via cabling, for applications where the controller needs to be accessible, replaceable, or located away from the motor itself (e.g. for thermal reasons, or ease of servicing)
Programmability
As with our BLDC controllers, stepper controllers can be configured with preset speed/position profiles, acceleration/deceleration ramp shaping to reduce mechanical stress and missed steps at speed transitions, and communication interfaces for integration into larger control systems.
Manufacturing and Validation
Every stepper controller is built under our ISO 9001-certified quality process, with the same in-house conformal coating and potting capability available for controllers operating in wet or harsh environments — relevant for pump-integrated stepper drives exposed to the same conditions as the pump itself.
Brushless DC / PMSM / IPSM Capability
Motor Types and Topologies
- BLDC (surface-mounted magnet, trapezoidal back-EMF) — driven with either simple trapezoidal (six-step) commutation for cost-sensitive applications, or sinusoidal commutation where smoother torque and lower acoustic noise are required
- PMSM / SPM (surface permanent magnet, sinusoidal back-EMF) — driven with full field-oriented control (FOC) for precise torque and speed control across the operating range
- IPM (interior permanent magnet) — where magnetic saliency between the direct and quadrature axes is exploited for reluctance torque, extending the motor's usable torque and speed range beyond what magnet torque alone provides; controllers are tuned specifically to take advantage of this saliency rather than treating an IPM motor as a standard SPM design
Control Strategy
- Trapezoidal (six-step) commutation — lowest-cost, simplest control strategy, well suited to applications where torque ripple and audible noise aren't critical
- Sinusoidal commutation — smoother torque delivery and reduced noise/vibration compared to trapezoidal drive, without the full complexity of FOC
- Field-Oriented Control (FOC) — Clarke and Park transforms used to control motor current in the rotating d-q reference frame, enabling precise, independent control of torque- and flux-producing current components. This gives the best achievable dynamic performance, efficiency, and torque smoothness, and is essential for extracting reluctance torque from IPM designs
- Space Vector Modulation (SVM) — used in place of simpler sinusoidal PWM (SPWM) where higher DC bus utilisation and lower switching losses are required
Sensored and Sensorless Operation
- Sensored control — using Hall-effect sensors or encoder feedback for direct rotor position sensing, giving robust low-speed and startup performance
- Sensorless control — using back-EMF sensing (or, where required, advanced observer-based techniques) to estimate rotor position without physical sensors, reducing cost, wiring, and points of failure. We've delivered sensorless combined BLDC/asynchronous controllers capable of running well beyond 100,000 rpm, and sensorless control tuned specifically for accurate operation at the low end of the speed range — historically one of the harder problems in sensorless BLDC control
Current Sensing
Three-shunt, low-side current sensing is our standard approach on current-generation platforms, giving accurate, real-time phase current measurement across the full operating range — the foundation both for FOC and for current-based protection features like overcurrent detection and load/current monitoring.
Voltage and Power Range
Controllers are built across a wide power envelope — from sub-5W controllers integrated directly inside compact product housings (down to 20mm diameter footprints where required), through to industrial-scale platforms running continuous currents of 30A and beyond, with peak current handling engineered to absorb demanding startup and load transients without derating.
Firmware and Model-Based Development
Firmware is built using a structured, layered architecture, with model-based development used alongside hand-written C to simulate and validate control algorithms before they run on real hardware — reducing the risk of subtle control-loop errors that are difficult to catch through bench testing alone.
Programmability
As with our other controller platforms, BLDC/PMSM/IPM controllers support preset speed profiles, closed-loop speed control, constant-speed-under-load operation, analogue input control, pulse/status outputs, current monitoring, and self-optimising commissioning routines for rapid setup across different motor models.
Manufacturing and Validation
Every controller is manufactured under our ISO 9001-certified quality process, validated on our own test bench — combining dynamometer loading with precision power analysis for synchronised electrical and mechanical measurement — and built with in-house conformal coating and potting capability for units operating in harsh or wet environments.
Custom Pump Controller Design
Every pump controller covered above — BLDC, PMSM, IPM, and stepper, from 20mm-diameter pump-integrated designs through to 30A+ industrial platforms — started life as a custom motor controller design built specifically for one client's pump, not adapted from a generic off-the-shelf board. For pump applications in particular, that matters more than it might elsewhere: pump duty cycles, load profiles, mounting constraints, and failure modes vary enormously between a peristaltic dosing pump and a high-power industrial centrifugal pump, and a controller tuned to one rarely performs well on the other.
What "Custom" Means in Practice
A custom pump controller isn't a modified version of a standard product — it's engineered from the requirements up:
- Motor topology and control strategy matched to the pump — trapezoidal, sinusoidal, or full FOC, sensored or sensorless, chosen based on the motor construction and the performance the pump actually needs, not applied as a default
- Physical footprint engineered to the installation, not the other way round — from controllers designed to be built directly into the pump housing, to panel-mount solutions for separate enclosures
- Power stage sized to the pump's real operating envelope, including realistic peak/surge handling for startup and load transients, not just steady-state running current
- Firmware built around the pump's actual behaviour — startup characteristics, load variation, dosing/flow accuracy requirements, and any application-specific protection logic
- Programmability set at the level the application needs — from simple power-on-and-run behaviour through to full analogue control, preset speeds, constant-speed-under-load, and self-optimising commissioning across a range of pump variants
Why Clients Move to a Custom Design
The pattern we see most often with pump manufacturers is a progression, not a single decision: an initial controller solves the immediate requirement, and once it's proven reliable in the field, clients come back wanting more from the platform — broader programmability to serve a wider customer base, or significantly more power to reach a more demanding tier of application. Both of the [case studies linked above] followed exactly this path: a proven controller redeveloped first for deeper configurability, then scaled again for higher current, without disrupting the behaviour and reliability customers already trusted.
From Prototype to Volume
Custom doesn't mean low-volume or one-off. Every custom pump controller we design is built for manufacture from the outset — DFM-reviewed, produced under our ISO 9001-certified quality process, and, where the application demands it, protected with in-house conformal coating or potting. Whether you need ten prototype units or ongoing volume production, the design and the manufacturing process are the same one that got the original controller into your product in the first place.