Stepper motors are a type of brushless DC motor, but are designed to be much more precise and controllable instruments than the standard DC motor. As opposed to most motors that have an on/off functionality, stepper motors can be precisely attuned to a specific location on the 360-degree rotational plane. This makes them very valuable in industrial applications for precision control of equipment. They require more control circuitry as well, with a microcontroller managing most of the operational electronics of the motor.The motors have a central gear attached to the drive shaft. This gear has many small grooves and teeth on its edge. Surrounding the gear are a series of electromagnet coils that are aligned in a very specific pattern. When a command is issued to the motor, the microcontroller determines how many grooves of rotation are required to make the necessary adjustments to the motor. One at a time the electromagnets are enabled, which aligns the teeth to a specific magnet and misaligns them to all others. Then the next magnet is energized which aligns the teeth with that magnet and slowly increments the gear in the direction required. This continues until the proper orientation is reached, which can actually take hundreds of command pulses through the coils. Read more Read less