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7/13
L8219
FUNCTIONAL DESCRIPTION
One L8219 is able to drive both windings of a bipolar stepper motor. Internal PWM control circuit sets the current
in each motor’s winding. The peak current in each winding is sensed and then controlled by an external sensing
resistor (Rs), a reference voltage (Vref), and the 2 bit DAC. In addition, varying the Vref voltage can be provided
a continous control of the peak load current fitting micro-stepping application needs.
Logic (I0 and I1)
The current level in each motor winding is selected with two digital inputs. (See tab.1) producing four current
Imax, 70.7%Imax, 41%Imax and zero current.
Eight step position can be produced at constant torque setting an Half-step mode and selecting 100% current
when only one phase is ON and 70.7% when two phases are ON.
When the ”Phase” signal change or when I0=I1=H the power bridge is turned off resulting in a fast current decay
(see fig.1) through the internal output clamp and flyback diodes. The fast current decay is usefull for half-step
and high speed application. If any of the logic inputs is left open, the circuit will treat it as a high level input. Due
to the internal current control loop (sensing resistor, comparator, monostable) a delay time of ~2
sec exsist be-
tween the input of the digital comand and the real current implementation in the motor’s winding. When the dig-
ital inputs are set to zero (I0=I1=L) the average current will be higher then zero for a time period of ~2sec; to
skip this problem there is the pin ”
Enable” which immediately turn off the bridge.
With the I0 and I1 digital input signals is also possible to implement the ”holding torque” (reduced power dissi-
pation), or the best ”start-up” condition (maximum output current).
Figure 1.
Internal PWM Current Control
Once an output current level has been set by the digital input the current in the motor winding begins to flow in
the bridge (see fig.1) and the max peak current Imax can be defined by: Imax = Vref10 Rs. At the same time
the voltage on sensing resistor increase and the bridge will be turned off again as soon as the voltage on the
sensing resistor is equal to the value set by the DAC; at this stage the current recirculates through the ground-
clamp diodes and sink transistor implementing the slow current decay.
Once the ”toff” time has expired the source driver is turned on again and the cycle repeat itself keeping the de-
sidered average current level.
Io
I1
Current Leve
H
L
H
L
H
L
0% Current
41% Current
70.7% Current
100% Current
VBB
RS
DRIVE CURRENT
RECIRCULATION
(SLOW-DECAY MODE)
RECIRCULATION
(FAST-DECAY MODE)
D99IN1004