Automatic Magnetic Loop Tuner – A4975STB, A4988 or DRV8825

The design Loftur published on the project site was built around two A4975SBT ic’s. Although they are available at digikey.com they are rather expensive if you only need 2. Mouser.com even doesn’t have them in stock. When you need more of them to build multiple automatic magnetic loop tuners, you could start looking for them on AliExpress. A starting seller (who needs good reviews for credibility) will offer you 10 pieces for less than 12 euro. They have a 1,5 A continuous output current and have a step sequencing from 1 full step until an eighth of a step. When you are using a multi-turn variable vacuum capacitor or any capacitor connected to a geared motor, this will do just fine.

Allegro A4975SBT.

If the steering cable is too long, and its resistance is becoming too high, you need to provide more than 1,5 A so your motor would still receive enough current to generate sufficient torque for turning the capacitor. Depending on the type of capacitor, you might need more than 1/8 of a micro-step. In both cases, you should look out for something more powerful or precise than the A4975STB. Two alternative stepper driver modules are the A4988 or the DRV8825. On top of being more precise and/or more powerful, they are easier to find and a lot cheaper than two A4975STB. Just like with the NEMA 17 stepper motors, these modules are widely used in all kinds of 3D printers and DIY CNC machines. There are plenty of suppliers on AliExpress, offering them for prices close to one euro.

The A4988 is capable to deliver 1A per phase without a heat sink or forced airflow and is rated for 2A per coil with sufficient additional cooling. On top of all kinds of over- and under-protection intelligence (voltage, temperature, current, crossover-current, short-to-ground and shorted-load) it features five different step resolutions: full-step, half-step, quarter-step, eighth-step, and sixteenth-step.

A4988 stepper module.

The DRV8825 has a pinout and interface that are nearly identical to those of the A4988 stepper driver module, so it can be used as a higher-performance drop-in replacement for those modules in our automatic magnetic loop tuner. It can deliver up to approximately 1.5 A per phase without a heat sink or forced air flow and is rated for up to 2.2 A per coil with sufficient additional cooling.

DRV8825 stepper module.

It will not sound as a surprise to you when I tell you these two modules don’t fit in the original PCB layout Loftur designed. Joerg, a user in the loop controller yahoo group found a solution for that and made an adapter board to use an A4988 or DRV8825 module with Loftur’s print.

Joerg made me realise it wouldn’t be too difficult to adapt the original design and make a new PCB especially for the A4988 or DRV8825 stepper driver modules. After some hours redrawing the schematics and moving around the components I came up with the following PCB design.

It’s 67mm x 100mm and features besides the space for an A4988 or DRV8825 module, 3 (T1, T2 and T3) 2.2 A common mode chokes (CMS1-8-R). Loftur proposed these chokes as an upgrade for the 1 A common mode chokes of Wurth Electronics (744227S) originally used in his first design.