TMC2208 - Silent stepper Motor controler

TMC2208, the silent microstepping for your 3D printer

The TMC2208 produced by Trinamic is able to control bipolar stepper motor with full step and micro-stepping and the more important it does it in a silent way thanks to stealthChop2 technology!

This stepstick is made to replace the A4988 of your 3D printer, the TMC2208 can also be used to automate printers, automated system, seewing machine, surveiillance system (the camera moves without a sound), HAVC, money sorter, etc.

The micro-stepping allows you to divide step in several micro-steps... which would offer a higher granularity when revolving the shaft.

Without micro-stepping a 200 step stepper made 200 steps per full shaft revolution (so 1.8° per step). By using a 1/8 step micro-stepping, the motor coils are controled such a way that it would needs 200*8 = 1600 steps to make a full revolution (so 0.225° per micro-steps). 

This breakout can manage bipolar stepper, also under micro-stepping. The pinout et interface is very close to the popular A4988, sur a way that the TMC2208 can be used as inplace replacement for the A4988 for many applications. The TMC2208 also offers a 1/256th step control. It will run with motor voltage between 5.5 V to 36 V and constant current of ~1.2 A per coil (2 A peak).

The board has a onboard trim pot that can be used to configure the current limiter.

Among the various functionnality, the TMC2208 expose a serial port that sends diagnostic information (and advance configuration, see the datasheet for more information on this point).

Technical details

• Hardware compatible with StepStick and Pololu A4988
• Drive capability up to 1.2A (RMS) continuous coil current - 2A Peak
• Step/Dir interface with microstep interpolation (up to 256 microsteps)
• Configuration via CFG pins or UART interface
• Motor supply voltage: 5.5 to 36V
• Logic supply voltage: 3.3 to 5V
• Components on the bottom for better heat dissipation
• stealthChop2 for quiet operation and smooth motion (default setting)
• spreadCycle highly dynamic motor control chopper (enableable via UART)
• Fiche technique du TMC2208 (pdf, 1 Mb)

Some steppers are unipolars (eg. having 6 or 8 wires) and can also be controled as bipolar motors. See this FAQ secion at Pololu.

Content

For each order, you will receive the StepStick TMC2208 + a pinheader connector. You will have to solder the pinHeader on the board but this should not take more than 5 minutes.