I designed up this simple motor driver board so I could evaluate the capabilities of the DRV8428 driver IC and a bunch of stepper motors we had lying around. This board worked out really well and it was comforting to know there where some better higher capability driver IC's in the DRV84xx family if I needed them.
The DRV8428 IC can drive motors over a 4.2V to 33V range and up to 1A of current. Down to 1/256 microstepping and doesn't need any sense resistors, which is a real PCB space saver. The 16-pin QFN IC is only 3mm x 3mm. I included a 1.25mm generic connector and a bare wire quick connect connector block:
- DRV8428_Motor-Driver_Breakout_PCB.jpg (212.65 KiB) Viewed 3954 times
I ended up using thousands of these motor drivers in a kinetic sculpture that a group of us worked on in 2024.