Stepper motor problem

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I have a lot of small stepper motors with 16 leads (8 pair of windings). Is
there some procedure I can go through to find the phase order of the
windings. I mean, I need to apply power to these windings, in order, so that
the motor will move in the most efficient manner. I tried an oscilloscope on
one set of leads while generating a sinusoidal signal on another but the
difference in inducted voltage was not enough to tell me which set of leads
was closest to the one into which I was generating the signal.

 

[Robert Baer]

I have a lot of small stepper motors with 16 leads (8 pair of windings). Is
there some procedure I can go through to find the phase order of the
windings. I mean, I need to apply power to these windings, in order, so that
the motor will move in the most efficient manner. I tried an oscilloscope on
one set of leads while generating a sinusoidal signal on another but the
difference in inducted voltage was not enough to tell me which set of leads
was closest to the one into which I was generating the signal.

I think 8 leads means there are basically 4 poles, and a pair of
windings go with each pole.
Perhaps one could apply a sine wave to one winding and then look for
which other winding is the compliment to it; mark it and the phasing as
well; repeat until all 4 pairs are polarity marked and grouped together.
I would thenconnect the pairs together +...- <--> +...- withthe center
as the common (ground or supply) lead.
This way, one does not need an H-bridge to drive them; for one drive
polarity, power the "left" lead, and for the opposite drive polarity,
drive the "right" lead.