Stepper drivers fried. Replacements?

[jsamuels 0]

I did something dumb with 3 of my stepper drivers (plugged them in backwards... don't ask!) and pretty sure I fried them. The rest of the electronics seem fine, tested all 4 axis very carefully with the remaining stepper driver. So now I need replacements. I don't see them order-able on the UM store, but anyways I think I can get them a lot cheaper / less shipping here in the US. But the Pololu A4988 are sold out in a lot of places. I see there are some alternatives though and I'm wondering if any would be a better choice?

Pololu DRV8825 (

http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/2132

) may be the most interesting thing. It supports 1/32 microstep and can sink 1.5A without active cooling. But it has some differences to the normal A4988 driver.

SureStepr (

http://www.panucatt.com/product_p/sd82b.htm

) - Can sink up to 1.2A and is a good price, but it doesn't support 1/8 microstepping, which the Z-axis uses. Can the Z axis work with 1/16? It's of course easy to change by setting the jumper on the Ultimaker electronics, but I'm not sure if there will be sufficient torque to drive the Z axis accurately at 1/16th. I can however simply use the 1 good ultistepper driver I have on the Z axis.

StepStick / eBay A4988 drivers - Cheapest option. I read some of these are limited to 1A due to the sense resistor. Otherwise the same as the Pololu drivers.

Pololu "Black" (

http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/2128

) same as the normal Pololu driver, just rated for a higher max current. More expensive.

[owen 19]

I did something dumb with 3 of my stepper drivers (plugged them in backwards... don't ask!) and pretty sure I fried them. The rest of the electronics seem fine, tested all 4 axis very carefully with the remaining stepper driver. So now I need replacements. I don't see them order-able on the UM store, but anyways I think I can get them a lot cheaper / less shipping here in the US. But the Pololu A4988 are sold out in a lot of places. I see there are some alternatives though and I'm wondering if any would be a better choice?

Pololu DRV8825 (

http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/2132

) may be the most interesting thing. It supports 1/32 microstep and can sink 1.5A without active cooling. But it has some differences to the normal A4988 driver.

SureStepr (

http://www.panucatt.com/product_p/sd82b.htm

) - Can sink up to 1.2A and is a good price, but it doesn't support 1/8 microstepping, which the Z-axis uses. Can the Z axis work with 1/16? It's of course easy to change by setting the jumper on the Ultimaker electronics, but I'm not sure if there will be sufficient torque to drive the Z axis accurately at 1/16th. I can however simply use the 1 good ultistepper driver I have on the Z axis.

StepStick / eBay A4988 drivers - Cheapest option. I read some of these are limited to 1A due to the sense resistor. Otherwise the same as the Pololu drivers.

Pololu "Black" (

http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/2128

) same as the normal Pololu driver, just rated for a higher max current. More expensive.

Hi

You could check out your current rating of your stepper motors and you might find they are 2 Amps, so 2 Amps + is going to be best.

[Daid 306]

The rating of the default steppers is 1.2Amp. Not sure where you got the 2 Amps from Owen? So you need at least 1.2 Amps, but it's better to have some slack there, especially because at the max rating they usually need a lot of cooling.

If you are in europe, you can get new drivers from UM, but if you are in the US that might be a bit expensive and then I personally would go for the black pololus.

[owen 19]

The rating of the default steppers is 1.2Amp. Not sure where you got the 2 Amps from Owen? So you need at least 1.2 Amps, but it's better to have some slack there, especially because at the max rating they usually need a lot of cooling.

If you are in europe, you can get new drivers from UM, but if you are in the US that might be a bit expensive and then I personally would go for the black pololus.

Sorry about that. I got 2 Amp ones and I thought UM had changed to similar ones after I got mine.