L6203 in Parallel ???

[joprinz]

Hello Everyone,

I'm trying to design a High Ampere (4-8A) Bipolar stepper Driver and I am looking at various possibilities now.

I came across the L6203 4A Full Bridge from ST. This is the basic L297/L6203 Bipolar Stepper driver setup.

L297 + 2 x L6203 Full Bridge ===> 4A Max per Phase

I checked the L6203 Datasheet and it says 4A MAX in FULL Bridge Mode. I was just wondering if its possible to use the L6203 in a half bridge mode? So my setup would look like:

L297 + 2 x L6203 Half Bridge + 2 x L6203 Half Bridge ===> 8A Max per Phase

Is such a setup possible? Any idea/Suggestion/Opinion is highly appreciated.

Please Advice!

Thank You,

Joe!

[irving2008]

I dont see why not, parallel all inputs and outputs in a 6203. MOSFETS you can do this with as their resistance increases with temperature so they are naturally self-balancing. I'd probably limit it to 6A in reality rather than push for the full 8 as I've read elsewhere here that heatsinking at the limit is an issue with the 6203.

Would be easy to mock it up to test dissipation and current sharing...