I'm not going to lie and say I know a whole lot about the physical side of electronics, so I'll just straight out and ask if I could run a stepper motor I stripped out of a scanner on a series of D batteries (adding up to 12v, the motors operating voltage)
they run on DC, and yes, you can run one on batteries. If you're not fussy, DC supplies are all around. You have one in the scanner. .
You can run the stepper motor using batteries, but stepper motors need a controller to make them advance step by step. It's basically a logic circuit that changes the polarity of the 4 wire leads. So unless you can figure out how to hot-wire the scanners controller and give it input, you'll have to buy one. To be able to just hook up a power source and run the motor, you can't use a stepper motor. You'd have to get a regular DC motor. As far as a regular power supply goes, check around all your appliances for a 12VDC adapter (any wall plug that runs at 12VDC). Depending on the size of the motor, and the load you're putting on it, you may need a high current one. RadioShack has a 12VDC 1.5A adapter for just under 30 bucks. Check the link.
