Reprap stepper motor PCBs V1.1

I'd love to lay my hands on a set of three unpopulated stepper motor boards which take L298 bridge driver chip (in the big multiwatt package). I kitted up a full set of parts for these to make a CNC bed from the Geoff Williams book, but my home etched boards are pretty poor (Geoff's board designs are not all that hot either). I found that the early reprap boards are the same circuit (pretty much the circuit from the chip data sheet) and would appreciate a short cut to using these fine components.

The board in question is here:

[reprap.org]

Since I've now built a Mendel Prusa with a RAMPS board, I'll use these steppers for something different.

Regards, Chris.

I'd be surprised if you manage to find boards for these easily, they're pretty ancient tech compared to pololus. I used that circuit on my darwin, and made a couple of drivers on protoboard (the pcbs with either unconnected spots or breadboard-style copper are my preference), which is probably easiest. Just put the chips in sensible positions nearish each other and solder traces according to the schematic. Either that, or try and improve your home etching, it might take a few hours to get the hang of, but then it's a useful skill to have. If I was making that at home, I'd make it one-sided, and solder some wires on the other side for simplicity.

The L297/298 combo is extremely outdated and really not worth it nowadays. How bad is your toner transfer technique, got some pictures?
If you think you can handle a3977/a3979 PLCC pads, better aim for that, which is a x1000 times better option. Otherwise might get some pololu/easy driver.

@james glanville & @NoobMan

Thanks for your responses. I appreciate the L298 is pretty old hat, but having forked out for the components (and it wasn't pennies) I'd like to use them.

After a bit of further searching, I found these

[www.technobotsonline.com]

- I'll just graft them onto stripboard, which is my default method - the main obstacle to using stripboard was the staggered pinout of the L298, and this solves it for me.

Cheers, Chris.

I'd grab the v1.2 schematics (yes, there's a v1.2) an make a new layout for it. As the schematics is proven, the chances for bad surprises are low.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY