Easy Driver vs Stepper Motor Driver v2.3

I have been looking for the cheapest and most efficient way to construct a repstrap. My plan is to use the Arduino Mega as the core (I read official support may be coming soon).

The step driver is a significant portion of the electronics package costs and complexity, so I wanted to investigate alternatives for that as well.

Easy Driver & Easy Driver Quad appear to be options that are simple to implement and provide 8x micro-stepping.

[schmalzhaus.com]
[schmalzhaus.com]

Can someone explain the advantages of the Stepper Motor Driver v2.3 vs the Easy Driver? I read through all the documentation I could find on the v2.3 and was at a loss. The Easy Driver Quad supports registers and chaining boards, so many steppers can be driven without consuming any additional pins on the arduino controller.

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

Sparkfun has the easy driver but it only has "Adjustable current control from 150mA/phase to 750mA/phase" where the reprap driver can go up to 2 amp.

thanks, is 750mA is insufficient?

Probably, but if you have issues with your mechanics, having more current available is a big plus. I've been running my Darwin's Z axis at just over 1 amp for many months, as it's pretty stiff. X and Y get by with roughly 500 mA. They'd be great for the Mendel design, as it's only using nema17's or 14's. I think Vik has been messing with those drivers.

I don't think chaining the drivers gives much of an advantage, as we need to control each board individually.

Wade

Thanks for the guidance.

I am looking at some smaller motors, and a repstrap designed similarly to the Mendel, so these boards may be sufficient.

My understanding is when you chain boards you can still control each motor individually, but you have to select the motor you want to control. If you are using many motors it would take up less room on the controller.

I'll do some more research on motors before I commit to a controller.