stepper motor driver

Archive New Product Ideas
1

Hi Sparkfun guys,

I think it would be nice if you offered a simple stepper motor driver, possibly based on the L297 / L298 stepper circuit. This circuit is not particularly complicated but the package of the L298 makes it awkward to breadboard or wire-wrap.

I think there is a market for these drivers particularly for those interested in building CNC machines. I know that the fab@home guys http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page suggest buying the LPC-H2148 from sparkfun so I’m sure they would appreciate being able to get the stepper driver from the same source.

Thanks

jay

2

Hi. How about the Allegro 3967 chip? It’s nice because it does 8 microsteps/step and is a chopper drive, with just two interface pins (step and direction) and it’s pretty cheap. Downside for CNC is that it’s a bit weak (750mA/phase). Would that be an interesting product?

*Brian

3

I agree - although it might be better to use the LMD18245 since it has higher voltage and more amps and is layed out similar to the 1820x breakout board that SF already produces. For a quick summary of open source stepper drivers

and breakout boards for CNC see: