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I'm doing a bit of shopping lately and I pretty much see stepper motor drivers everywhere, although I couldn't find any for brushed DC motors. I attempted to use a 2n2222 but it's probably a bad idea as it may will burn it out. Now, I found several small-sized stepper motor drivers that are perfectly sized for my needs, but I'm not sure if it can run these kinds of motors. Can a stepper motor driver run small, high-speed motors?

EDIT: The control that I'm talking about is speed control (50% from full speed, 37%, etc.)

These motors are what I'm talking about. 4v, more or less 1A enter image description here

Thanks in advance

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Aloha
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1 Answers1

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The motors/drivers you've specified are an excellent match, as long as you realize that you'll need to provide a fairly high-speed PWM (Pulse Width Modulation - say, 10 kHz) signal for your speed control. The drivers are rated for 1.2 amps average, and the motors are claimed to run at ~100 mA, although I suspect that's with no load and they may well draw more when trying to do useful work. Plus, you won't get full speed under load.

What you cannot do is simply hook up a pot or variable voltage control input and get variable speed. You can work by varying the motor drive voltage, but this is a bit more involved, since it requires a relatively high-current amplifier or power supply, and is clearly not something you've done. Like I say, you'll need to learn about PWM for speed control.

WhatRoughBeast
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    I'm certain that I cannot provide that sort of PWM speed. Might as well go and look for alternatives, or a MOSFET. – Aloha Sep 02 '15 at 14:21