Introduction: How to Freeform a L293D Motor Driver

By TinyWorkshop

I was recently doing a project involving stepper motors, and needed a motor driver that had a small form factor and had 4 outputs. After finishing and refining my freeform of this driver, I decided to put it up here, as it seemed that not many people had done this. Without further adue, a freeform motor driver.

Step 1: Materials

You don't need much to make this. All you need is:

    (1) L293D IC -- The motor driver.
    (1) Small jumper wire -- It only needs to be about 1" long.
    (1) Piece of ribbon cable -- 12 strands, or one 8-strand piece and one 4-strand piece.
    (5) Short pieces of heat-shrink tubing -- It's never good to have shorted connections.

You'll also need wire cutters, strippers, solder, and a soldering iron.

Step 2: Solder Together Ground Pins

The L293d has a very nice pinout for everything except PCB layout. Since the four ground pins are in the middle, just fold them in until they're all touching and then solder.

Step 3: Soldering Logic Power

Pin 16 is the Logic power supply. It wants to be connected to +5 volts. Pin 1 is the 1-2 channel enable. It has to be connected to +5 for the chip to run. I usually connect the enables to +5 , but if you don't want to because you want to use them, just skip this step.

Fold pins 1 and 16 together across the bottom of the chip, and solder.

Step 4: Hooking Up the Last Enable

If you're using the enables, skip this step too.

Fold in the 3-4 channel enable (pin 9) and solder a jumper wire between it and the connection made in step 2.

Step 5: Prepare the Ribbon Cable

Separate strands of ribbon cable, and tin the ends. It will make soldering much easier later.

Step 6: Solder Power Wires

Solder wires to Ground, +5, and the Motor supply pin (pin 8). Trim excess off the ground and +5 connections, and put heat shrink tubing over the Motor supply wire.

Step 7: Solder Inputs

Solder four strands of cable to the input pins. They are:
  Pin 2
  Pin 7
  Pin 10
  Pin 15

Heat shrink over the connections.

Step 8: Solder Outputs and Finish Up!

All the remaining pins are outputs. Solder ribbon cable to them. You don't have to heat shrink them, because everything around them is insulated.

And that's it! Hook it up to a motor, stay within the voltage and current limits, and have fun!