Our Black Edition A4988 stepper motor driver carrier is a higher-performance drop-in replacement for the original A4988 stepper motor driver carrier. It features a four-layer PCB for better thermal performance, allowing the A4988 microstepping bipolar stepper motor driver to deliver approximately 20% more current than our two-layer (green) version. Like our original carrier, the Black Edition offers adjustable current limiting, over-current and over-temperature protection, and five different microstep resolutions. It operates from 8 V to 35 V and can deliver up to 2 A per coil with sufficient additional cooling. This board ships with 0.1″ male header pins included but not soldered in.
Overview
This product is a carrier board or breakout board for Allegro’s A4988 DMOS Microstepping Driver with Translator and Overcurrent Protection; we therefore recommend careful reading of the A4988 datasheet (1MB pdf) before using this product. This stepper motor driver lets you control one bipolar stepper motor at up to 2 A output current per coil. Here are some of the driver’s key features:
- Simple step and direction control interface
- Five different step resolutions: full-step, half-step, quarter-step, eighth-step, and sixteenth-step
- Adjustable current control lets you set the maximum current output with a potentiometer, which lets you use voltages above your stepper motor’s rated voltage to achieve higher step rates
- Intelligent chopping control that automatically selects the correct current decay mode (fast decay or slow decay)
- Over-temperature thermal shutdown, under-voltage lockout, and crossover-current protection
- Short-to-ground and shorted-load protection
- 4-layer, 2 oz copper PCB for improved heat dissipation
- Exposed solderable ground pad below the driver IC on the bottom of the PCB
This product ships with all surface-mount components—including the A4988 driver IC—installed as shown in the product picture.
