StepStick 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 (380k 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 (see the Power Dissipation Considerations section below for more information).

The equivalent to A4983-board but offers overcurrent protection. If the boards get too hot, they will interrupt the current until it cools a bit. If the current is too high for the heat sinking, the motors will pulse as the current is interrupted and restored. 

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.

Warning: 

Connecting or disconnecting a stepper motor while the driver is powered can destroy the driver. (More generally, rewiring anything while it is powered is asking for trouble.)

This carrier board uses low-ESR ceramic capacitors, which makes it susceptible to destructive 
LC voltage spikes, especially when using power leads longer than a few inches. Under the right conditions, these spikes can exceed the 35 V maximum voltage rating for the A4988 and permanently damage the board,  even when the motor supply voltage is as low as 12 V. One way to protect the driver from such spikes is to put a large (at least 47 µF) electrolytic capacitor across motor power (VMOT) and ground somewhere close to the board.

Includes:

1 x A4988 Stepstick

Documents:

A4988 Datasheet
Pololu A4983/A4988 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier Kicad module