DRV8434S library for Arduino

www.pololu.com

Summary

This is a library for the Arduino IDE that helps interface with a DRV8434S stepper motor driver. It uses the Arduino SPI library to communicate with the SPI interface (nSCS, SCLK, SDI, and SDO) of the DRV8434S.

Supported platforms

This library is designed to work with the Arduino IDE versions 1.8.x or later; we have not tested it with earlier versions. This library should support any Arduino-compatible board, including the Pololu A-Star controllers.

Getting started

Hardware

A DRV8434S carrier can be purchased from Pololu's website. Before continuing, careful reading of its product page is recommended.

You will need to connect your motor, motor power, and IOREF as described on the product page. You should also make the following connections between the Arduino and the driver:

Arduino	DRV8434S
Digital pin 2	DIR
Digital pin 3	STEP
Digital pin 4	nSCS
SCK	SCLK
MOSI	SDI
MISO	SDO
IOREF	VSDO
IOREF	nSLEEP
GND	GND

The SDO pin is only needed if you want to read information back from the stepper driver. Since the motor can be stepped and its direction changed using the SPI interface, it is possible to use the driver without connecting the STEP and DIR pins, and they are not used in every example.

The SPI pins (MOSI, MISO, and SCK) on Arduino-compatible boards are sometimes not labeled. You should refer to the documentation for your particular board to find the locations of these pins.

If your Arduino does not have an IOREF pin, connect a supply matching the logic voltage of your controller (e.g. 5V for an Arduino Uno) to VSDO and nSLEEP.

Software

You can use the Library Manager to install this library:

1. In the Arduino IDE, open the "Sketch" menu, select "Include Library", then "Manage Libraries...".
2. Search for "DRV8434S".
3. Click the DRV8434S entry in the list.
4. Click "Install".

If this does not work, you can manually install the library:

1. Download the latest release archive from GitHub and decompress it.
2. Rename the folder "drv8434s-arduino-xxxx" to "DRV8434S".
3. Drag the "DRV8434S" folder into the "libraries" directory inside your Arduino sketchbook directory. You can view your sketchbook location by opening the "File" menu and selecting "Preferences" in the Arduino IDE. If there is not already a "libraries" folder in that location, you should make the folder yourself.
4. After installing the library, restart the Arduino IDE.

Examples

Several example sketches are available that show how to use the library. You can access them from the Arduino IDE by opening the "File" menu, selecting "Examples", and then selecting "DRV8434S". If you cannot find the examples, the library was probably installed incorrectly and you should retry the installation instructions above.

Documentation

For complete documentation of this library, including many features that were not mentioned here, see the drv8434s-arduino documentation. If you are already on that page, see the DRV8434S class reference.

Version history

• 1.0.0 (2022-10-07): Original release.