UCN5804 stepper driver replacement

A

aman

Guest
I am looking for a unipolar stepper motor driver. UCN5804 was a popular
one for this but is discontinued. Does anybody know of any other
unipolar drivers.

Can I use a bipolar driver and add some diodes to enable unipolar
operation. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
aman wrote:
I am looking for a unipolar stepper motor driver. UCN5804 was a
popular
one for this but is discontinued. Does anybody know of any other
unipolar drivers.

Can I use a bipolar driver and add some diodes to enable unipolar
operation. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Hi, Aman. The UCN5804 is still available at alltronics for $5.50 a
pop:

http://www.alltronics.com/integrated_circuits.htm

If I was to try something else, I'd use a PIC and a ULN2003 if coil
current was less than 1/2A, or a PIC and four TO-220 NPN darlingtons
with eight resistors and diodes if more than 1/2A coil current. Here's
what one half of one of the stepper coil drive would look like (view in
fixed font or M$ Notepad():

~
~ VCC
~ VCC +
~ + |R
~ | .-.
~ D| | |
~ - | |
~ ^ '-'
~ | ___ | ___
~ o-UUU-o-UUU-o
~ |
~ o---.
~ TIP120| |
~PIC ___ |/ |
~ o-|___|- -| |
~ 4.7K | |> |D
~ .-. | -
~ | | | ^
~ 4.7K| | === |
~ '-' GND |
~ | ==~ === GND
~ GND
~
created by Andy´s ASCII-Circuit v1.24.140803 Beta www.tech-chat.de


Here's a link that offers a veritable plethora of stepper driver ideas,
including control through the parallel port of the PC using CQBASIC

http://users.pandora.be/educypedia/electronics/motorstepdriver.htm

Good luck, and have fun
Chris
 
Thanks Chris. That is really helpful. I can see that UCN5804 is
available right now. But if it is not available 3 months from now my
design will fail. I need a design that i can sustain for atleast 2 more
years.


Chris wrote:
aman wrote:
I am looking for a unipolar stepper motor driver. UCN5804 was a
popular
one for this but is discontinued. Does anybody know of any other
unipolar drivers.

Can I use a bipolar driver and add some diodes to enable unipolar
operation. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, Aman. The UCN5804 is still available at alltronics for $5.50 a
pop:

http://www.alltronics.com/integrated_circuits.htm

If I was to try something else, I'd use a PIC and a ULN2003 if coil
current was less than 1/2A, or a PIC and four TO-220 NPN darlingtons
with eight resistors and diodes if more than 1/2A coil current.
Here's
what one half of one of the stepper coil drive would look like (view
in
fixed font or M$ Notepad():

~
~ VCC
~ VCC +
~ + |R
~ | .-.
~ D| | |
~ - | |
~ ^ '-'
~ | ___ | ___
~ o-UUU-o-UUU-o
~ |
~ o---.
~ TIP120| |
~PIC ___ |/ |
~ o-|___|- -| |
~ 4.7K | |> |D
~ .-. | -
~ | | | ^
~ 4.7K| | === |
~ '-' GND |
~ | ==> ~ === GND
~ GND
~
created by Andy´s ASCII-Circuit v1.24.140803 Beta www.tech-chat.de


Here's a link that offers a veritable plethora of stepper driver
ideas,
including control through the parallel port of the PC using CQBASIC

http://users.pandora.be/educypedia/electronics/motorstepdriver.htm

Good luck, and have fun
Chris
Click to expand...
 
aman wrote:
Thanks Chris. That is really helpful. I can see that UCN5804 is
available right now. But if it is not available 3 months from now my
design will fail. I need a design that i can sustain for atleast 2
more
years.
Click to expand...
O.K., then. If the chip really fills the need, buy a few spares. But
if it bothers, how about some more information, like:

* Is this a new design, or are you trying to fill an existing IC
socket?

* Stepper coil current and voltage? Straight coil voltage or L-R?

* Maximum stepper speed?

* Do you need all the logic capabilities of the chip?

* If not, which ones do you need? Read the data sheet carefully.

* Thru hole OK or SMT only?

* Do you have any capability with PICs or other microcontrollers?

* List in order of importance: ckt board space, number of chips,
cost.

* Beyond the IC itself, there's another issue. What's the rest of
your control system look like? If you're using a computer, it would be
simple to offload the logic requirement for which phases should be on
to the existing computer, and it just becomes a ULN2003 or four
darlingtons, depending on current/voltage requirements.

That should be enough to start with. There are other stepper ICs out
there, although you probably won't get a one chip solution like the
Sprague IC.

Please answer all of the above (middle post in the spaces provided if
you want) and you could get an answer that works well.

Chris
 
Hi.
These are the current equivalents:

http://www.allegromicro.com/ic/new_motors.asp

Miguel
 
Thanks Externet. But these are all for bipolar motors.

Can I use these to drive unipolar motors?

Also, is microstepping different from normal stepping. Can I use any
type of stepper motor with it or there are special motors for
micro-stepping ?
 
aman wrote:
Thanks Externet. But these are all for bipolar motors.

Can I use these to drive unipolar motors?

Also, is microstepping different from normal stepping. Can I use any
type of stepper motor with it or there are special motors for
micro-stepping ?
Click to expand...
The new Allegro chips are for bipolar drive, not unipolar. As an extra
added bonus, they're only available in SOIC packages, which can be a
pain for most newbies/hobbyists.

Microstepping is a lot different than normal stepping. For a
discussion on all things stepper motor, see the ultimate web reference,
Jones on Stepping Motors:

http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/step/

After you're done reading that, you have to take a good look at your
application, and the data sheet for the Sprague chip you originally
wanted, and answer some of the questions in the post above. You have
to state what you need in order to get a good answer. Otherwise,
people will just be thrashing around trying to guess, and lose
interest. You and we will have wasted our time.

If all you need is a single-step, low speed indexer/driver, your
solution may be as simple as several TTL/CMOS logic ICs and four
darlington transistors. But we have to know what you need first to
replace the Sprague chip to help you.

Time to learn and work a little to get what you need! ;-)

Good luck
Chris
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Welcome to EDABoard.com

Sponsor

Back
Top