# Is it appropriate to use the TB6621 or DRV8871 motor driver for powering 12V 1 amp motors?

I'm looking to make an Arduino powered rock crawler with 4 motors (want independent control of each wheel, also need to reverse).

I'm looking into buying 12V DC motors that seem to have about a 1A current draw. I'm looking at the 20 rpm 12V version here. Not sure if the motor will draw more current than 1 Amp based on the limited data sheet.

My original thought was to use 2 L298N motor drivers. I then realized the large voltage drop would be too inefficient so am now looking into MOSFET based drivers.

I'm now looking into using a set of DRV8871 (datasheet) or TB6621 (datasheet) motor drivers. Each of these appear to be much more efficient MOSFET based drivers. Would the DRV8871 be superior in this scenario?

Which of these drivers, if either would be appropriate for this project? I'm open to using other motor controllers as well.

• The DRV8871 looks decidedly superior. It is one-channel and can be distributed closer to motors, it is more powerful, it has twice of operating voltage (15V is dangerously close to system power 12V, which might have spikes). It is smaller, it is faster (max 200 kHz PWM versus 100 kHz for the Toshiba part). – Ale..chenski Feb 12 at 4:43

The question you didn't ask: you can figure out the stall current of those motors. Stall current is roughly $$\i_r + (i_r - i_{nl})\frac{\omega_{r}}{\omega_{nl}}\$$ where $$\i_{nl}\$$ is the motor no-load current, $$\\omega_{nl}\$$ is the motor no-load speed, $$\i_r\$$ is the motor rated current, and $$\\omega_r\$$ is the motor rated speed. So I get around 3.5A to 4A stall current.