Datasheet

Real-world power dissipation consideration
The motor driver IC has a maximum continuous current rating of 30 A. However, the chips by
themselves will overheat at lower currents (see the table above for typical values). The actual current
you can deliver will depend on how well you can keep the motor driver cool. The carrier printed circuit
board is designed to draw heat out of the motor driver chips, but performance can be improved by
adding a heat sink. In our tests, we were able to deliver short durations (on the order of milliseconds) of
30 A and several seconds of 20 A without overheating. At 6 A, the chip gets just barely noticeably
warm to the touch. For high-current installations, the motor and power supply wires should also be
soldered directly instead of going through the supplied terminal blocks, which are rated for up to 16 A.
Many motor controllers or speed controllers can have peak current ratings that are substantially higher
than the continuous current rating; this is not the case with these motor drivers, which have a 30 A
continuous rating and a over-current protection that can kick in as low as 30 A (45 A typical).
Therefore, the stall current of your motor should not be more than 30 A. (Even if you expect to run at a
much lower average current, the motor can still draw high currents when it is starting or if you use low
duty cycle PWM to keep the average current down.)
Note: The datasheet refers to the motor driver IC by the full part number VNH5019A-E, but the “A”
seems to simply indicate that it was packaged in tubes. It mentions VNH5019TR-E as another valid
part number for this IC (indicating tape-and-reel packaging).