Does anyone have experience with driving a stepper motor found in simple electronic clocks in both directions?

(img source: https://www.explainthatstuff.com/quartzclockwatch.html )

#electronics

@buherator I don't but I know there were problems using turbines from jet engines in wind turbines because the cogs were designed to push, not to be pushed so they broke off and vibrated in unexpected ways, so I'd check that first.

@woo i expect *much* less signifigant forces here, but I keep that in mind thx :)

@buherator The key point was that the shape and engineering of the leading and trailing edges of the cogs was different. At your scale, I imagine a simple visual inspection would tell you whether to worry.

@buherator The first sign of problems was unexpected 'pulsing' in the rotor rotation that didn't match the gusts of wind.

@woo Yeah I may replace the mechanics entirely + I don't aim for accuracy or even longevity in this project. But the electromagnetic part should work.

@buherator saw tooth waveforms?

@buherator direction is due to asymmetry in the rotor or stator. In most of these mechanisms, you can get it to run backwards by rotating the “stator” in your picture around. But you can’t go back and forth easily with the same guts. Source: made a backwards clock a while back.

@FuzzyAleks thanks this is exactly the kind of info I'm looking for! I experimented with manually switching polarity and it seemed it sometimes goes backwards but I guess it depends on ~random factors eg the exact position of the permanent magnet relative to the stator?

@buherator probably. There are several subtly different mechanisms for these ( for example, the ones with continuous seconds hand movement look pretty much the same as ticking ones). I don’t know much more.