Hold coil power is an electronic break in a sense. I could see that being useful for some with heavy loads and poor focusers that can slip. But I do not have that issue. Motors in a hold state will also use power and can get hot. So it has drawbacks too. I also have a geared drive that can not be back driven.

I have a custom enclosure for the Pi with a mounted db9 socket with wires soldered to leads on the HAT.

You only need to change the dip switches to select the microstep mode. But for more customized tuning, a few modifications to the code and self compiling it is an option.

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