ULN2003 Stepper Wing Featured in a Feather Format

Neuroscience researcher Lex Kravitz has created several projects that make use of stepper motors and went in search of a simple board that could handle the task easily and efficiently with future builds. Sure, Adafruit's FeatherWing fits that bill quite nicely, but Kravitz wanted something with additional features, such as programmable buttons and status LEDs. To that end, he decided to design his Feather ULN2003 Stepper Wing, which incidentally costs around $4 in parts, along with the PCB.

"This Feather Wing was made to be hand-assembled with through-hole components, which I find easier to put together in small runs. In the future I may make a version with SMD components as well for professional manufacture," states Kravitz. "I made this to control 5V 28BYJ-48 steppers that are easily available for ~$2-3 each. Often, they come with a ULN2003 driver board, if you are thrifty you can grab the chip off the board and move it to this board saving ~50 cents per board."

The Feather ULN2003 Stepper Wing may be small, but it boasts some excellent features, including a pair of 3-pin headers (GND, PWR, and SIG), which can be utilized to control servos or additional sensors, plus a 3.5mm TRRS port for external control. Moreover, it packs a pair of LEDs tied to digital pins, the UNL2003 motor driver, and two small buttons.

Kravitz has uploaded a walkthrough of his Feather UNL2003 Stepper Wing on his Hackaday page for those who would like to recreate his project, complete with BOM and schematics.