Newbie- Can I use this Driver with a stepper?

[blue_steel]

Hi,
I'm in the process of building my first CNC and would like to start playing around with some steppers.

I have this old driver I used for some Servos but I'd like to know if there's a simple way to have it control a stepper. It's basically a 2-to-4 decoder (74HC139) driving dual H-bridges.

Anybody have some simple ideas for driving the inputs to control a stepper in a bipolar configuration? Would the L297 be able to handle this?

The stepper I have appears to be similar to those in the HP II/IIIs. (5.4v, 1.6A).

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[Riceburner98]

This might help... These chips: http://www.st.com/stonline/books/pdf/docs/1373.pdf are what the "Intelligent Motion Systems" IM483 stepper driver uses (2 of them), they're basically dual H-bridges. They give example circuits in the datasheet, you might be able to use your circuit in a similar manner..

[blue_steel]

Thanks for the info riceburner,

I see that they have circuits which use the L297. Since I've got some samples of those I'll go ahead and give it a try with the h-bridge on my driver board.

Appreciate the help.