One motor l293d

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unigamer

Member
I have a motor that is geared down. It draws about 1.2A in normal use which is too much for the l293d and it shutsdown. I was wondering if the other side could be used for the same motor to double the current rating? Probably a stupid question but I thought I'd ask it.
 
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westaust55

Moderator
Would not recommend simple parallel of the two halves of a L923D.
Semiconductors are notorious for not sharing the current equally. One half would likely take most of the current and either shut down or fail terminally.

The L293D is rated at 600mA continuous per phase so even with two in parallel, since the motor is rated 1.2 Amps it would have been very much on the limit. However the issue above takes precedence.

Have a look at the L297 and L298 pair for a 4A continuous as 2A per phase H bridge driver. Otherwise consider some discrete transistors.
 
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unigamer

Member
Didn't think it would work. A bit dissapointed my motor drew so much current but the gearing is pretty lousy so not completely unexpected. Just ordered a few l298 as the hassle of building my own h-bridge didn't seem worth it. Thanks you your help! :)
 
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westaust55

Moderator
I see that they do raise the topic of potential for unequal sharing of current and a solution.

and with respect to the L293 it states:
"But if two bridges are needed this is not a good idea because an L298N may be used. However, if only one bridge is required an L293 connected as a single
bridge may be cheaper than an underutilized L298N."
 
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slurp

Senior Member
I guess the bottom line will be reliability, the more you push the components to their limits the more likely you are to fail...

regards,
Colin
 
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