sanguinololu board running low voltage motors

Hey guys!

So I bought the Sanguinololu board. My stepper motors are rated at 2.8 volts and 1.68A. The Sanguinololu board accepts a 12 V input but in any case not lower than 7 volts.
So my question is, would it be a problem if I connected the motor directly to the board or would I need to lower the voltage first. I am not sure how much the output voltage of the board will be.

Thanks in Advance.

The voltage rating on stepper motors is effectively the minimum voltage required to make them work. You can use higher voltages than the "rated" voltage through a stepper driver (the higher the voltage, the faster each "step" will be). With the Pololu (A498x) and TI (DRV 88xx) drivers, you actually need a voltage higher than the "rated" voltage of the stepper motor coils to get them to step at a reasonable speed. I personally try and select motors so that the rated voltage of the stepper driver is less than 1/3 of the supply voltage (so, for 12V, I use motors that are rated for 4V or less).

So you can run the Sanguinololu board off 12V no problem with those motors.

Note: The 1/3rd rule is not based on specific rule, it's just something that I've tested and found to work well as a basic "will it work" test.

Thanks a million Cefiar.

This is exactly the answer I was looking for.

Best Regrds
Ryan