15/09/2025 5:15 am
Topic starter
Notifications
Clear all
0
I’ve been using L293D and L298N motor drivers and noticed they heat up quickly, even under light loads.
Is this inherent to these older ICs, or could it be a wiring/power supply issue on my side?
How much of a difference would modern MOSFET-based drivers make in terms of efficiency and heat dissipation?
1 Answer
0
16/09/2025 5:28 am
Yes, much of the heating behaviour is inherent to older bipolar-driver ICs like the L293D and L298N. Those chips use bipolar transistors (Darlington or bipolar output stages) with large voltage drops, so a significant fraction of motor power is dissipated in the chip as heat.
Wiring and supply issues (thin wires, poor decoupling, undervoltage, high stall currents) can worsen the problem, but replacing the driver with a modern MOSFET-based H-bridge or dedicated MOSFET motor driver typically reduces losses by orders of magnitude and greatly lowers heat.
