Determine number of motor poles

The number of motor poles is an important characteristics of a gimbal motor, and needs to be known to setup the STorM32 gimbal controller correctly.

Often there is confusion about it, because manufacturer/vendor information is unclear or not even available.

Fortunately, it is quite simple to determine this number.

The simplest one is visual inspection: Count the number of the magnets which are glued to the inner side of the rotor bell, and that's the number.

Sometimes that's not possible. In that case you have this simple option: Apply a small voltage to two phases of the motor (it doesn't matter which two out of the three you choose). Importantly: USE A SMALL VOLTAGE! It is way sufficient to have only ca 50 mA of current flowing. Now take the rotor bell and turn it around. You will feel that it snaps into certain positions. Count the number of positions it snaps into for a rotation by 360°. That's the number of motor pole pairs. Multiply by two and you have the number of motor poles.