thanks much for the replies the steppers i'm trying to control are NEMA17 motors commonly found on the cheaper 3d printers
i'm seeing specs for currents in the order of less than an amp hence i think i may do some experiments with them, the lower current ones are likely pretty drivable using a L293D even if the bipolar device probably isn't a best fit.
the hard part with L293D is that it doesn't have current sensing pins and unless it is somehow possible to use the ground pin for that purpose, i'm left with trying to hack up something to do current sensing on the motor driving output pins.
it is pretty challenging to design given the reversing voltages and currents when the h-bridge reverses
if that's too difficult i may resort to the L298N instead which has the current sense pins provided on chip, and current sensing become as simple as placing a shunt and a low cost op amp at the current sensing pins
but L298N is pricier than L293D. The only benefit is that L298N could take a full 2 amps and hence could drive the bigger motors