Drive a DC motor rated for higher than 5V

For industrial grade applications, a more typical arrangement than the conventional servomotor, is a suitably geared down 3 phase motor, with either end-stop detection, or some form of position encoding, controlled by a HVAC (or main line voltage) control circuit, either switched or PID based.

For instance, in railway locomotives, while the pantograph seems an ideal candidate for a big servomotor, that is rarely if ever the mechanism used for extension and retraction. Note also that pantographs are not always two-position, some designs have fairly sophisticated sensing mechanisms and fine position and pressure control.

Another typical actuation mechanism for the kind of motion you are describing is the use of pneumatics or hydraulics - you can see this in the lift arms of fire trucks, for instance, or as the actuators for garbage trucks. This prevalence of liquid / gas drives instead of electric motors is for at least a couple of reasons: Safety (electrical failures and fail-safe modes) and flexibility of power routing. It is easy to have a compressor far removed from the moving parts, and just use piping down to the actuator.

Again, there are a number of sensors involved, to ensure precise positioning with such actuators. This is either in position steps, or fully analog sensing. There are also usually independent channel end-stop sensors to account for catastrophic failures by engaging some sort of fail-safe. The positioning, either way, is via external feedback channels rather than the integrated model used in hobby servomotors.

Okay, turns out that there was an issue with a wiring too and the labeling was indeed incorrect on the motors. A big thanks to Andy for spending his precious time in assisting me.

How I solved the problem

Update: After discussion with one of the commenters below, it is learned that there is no difference in the order of wires connected to the driver, therefore, the order of wires labeled in my question and in the answer below don't matter as much as setting the value on the variable resistor itself.

These drivers have an onboard tiny variable resistor that limits the current to the motor. I just had to tweak it to get everything working. Now the motor runs in ultra low speeds, although with some mild vibrations (in full step mode).

After enabling the micro-step mode provided by the chip, I was able to dampen the vibrations by a huge margin and got everything working butter smooth.

For anyone else who may have this motor, here are some references:

Orange and Brown wires constitute one coil of this motor, with the black being the center tap.

Likewise, Yellow and Red constitute the second coil, with the white wire being the center tap.

The way you connect it to a Polulu DRV8825 is as follows:

I hope this helps anyone else who may have the same issue.

Cheers.