I wonder why I can't find any reference to this chip being used here on the zone and even on the net. Looks like nobody uses this one.
To me it seems a good solution: single chip for bipolar motors, selectable from full to 1/8 microstepping at 3.5A peak current.
I did buy some on Ebay and made a few prototype PCB's and tried it from 1AMP up to 2.3AMP.
It works fine and price is OK, approx. 10 Euro for a chip and really minimal external components required.
But they have a few disadvantages:
- Low power supply: Absolute max. 40V
- Low step rate: 15kHz according to the datasheet.
- No simple current setting: only selected by the value of the current sense resistors or the 4 combinations of torque setting.
- Noisy motor when not moving (but this could be due to my prototype PCB design).
Positive stuff:
- Single chip doing everything.
- Very low price.
- Few external components.
- Extremely low power dissipation: at 2 Amps/phase a very small heatsink is sufficient.
Datasheet is here:
http://www.toshiba-components.com/pr...31_060531_.pdf
I do use them on a PS of 33VDC at 2.3Amp with Sonzeboz stepper motors (2.4 Amp/phase) and it works great.
Does anybody else have experience, comments on these?