A4988 Stepper Motor Driver

DMOS Microstepping Driver with Translator and Overcurrent Protection

This is a low cost breakout board for Allegro's A4988 Stepper Motor Driver. It has very advanced features like adjustable current limiting, over temperature and over current protection. It has five different stepping resolution and has a wide operating voltage range from 8 volt to 35 volts and can deliver current upto 1 ampere per phase. 

The A4988 is a complete micro-stepping motor driver with built-in translator for easy operation. It is designed to operate bipolar stepper motors in full-, half-, quarter-, eighth-, and sixteenth-step modes, with an output drive capacity of up to 35 V and ±2 A. The A4988 Motor Driver includes a fixed off-time current regulator which has the ability to operate in Slow or Mixed decay modes.

The translator is the key to the easy implementation of the A4988. Simply inputting one pulse on the STEP input drives the motor one micro-step. There are no phase sequence tables, high frequency control lines,or complex interface sto program. The A4988 interface is an ideal fit for applications where a complex microprocessor is unavailable or is overburdened. During stepping operation, the chopping control in the A4988 automatically selects the current decay mode, Slow or Mixed.

In Mixed decay mode, the device is set initially to a fast decay for a proportion of the fixed off-time, then to a slow decay for the remainder of the off-time. Mixed decay current control results in reduced audible motor noise, increased step accuracy, and reduced power dissipation.