RAMPS 1.4 as heater port as a DC motor driver??

Hi, I have an application for a RAMPS 1.4 board to which it seems idealy suited.

One part of the project has a need to control a small DC vacuum pump and I was thinking about using a relay driven from an IO pin, but I wondered if one of the heater ports could be used.

The motor only takes about 0.5A and being an inductive load would need a couple of clamping diodes to limit the back EMF spikes.

Does this seem a reasonable idea or am I on thin ice ???

Regards,
Dave

Has no-one any thoughts on this ??
Dave

Hi, just wanted to ask if you found an answer to your question.
I have a ramps board and want to control a similar pump for a pick and place machine.

I used two of the ports - one driving a vac pump the other a solonoid valve.

The two loads had a fast diode across the pins the protect from back emf.

It worked very well.

Dave