user40543: Me and my girlfriend are working on a small automatic plant watering system. Our first goal is to make an electrical 12V pump suck water out of a bottle.
As we were reading tutorials online we noticed that many people hook up a driver such as the l293 to their arduino in order to control the pump (essentially a brushed DC motor).
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/l293.pdf
Our pump is 12V 4.2 W.
My question is do we really need a driver like that for just activating / deactivating the pump ?
In my understanding the driver offers an H-bridge setup allowing to control up to two motors in both directions. 
Are there any other reasons to prefer this driver instead of a simple MOSFET / Transistor setup with such a simple use case like ours ?
Thank you for your help.
Best regards

user23644: Unless you wish to reverse the direction of the pump without reconnecting the wires in the opposite way, there is no need for a L293. A MOSFET that operates as a switch should be sufficient in your case. You can also try to PWM it and reduce/control the water flow.

40543: <p>Me and my girlfriend are working on a small automatic plant watering system. Our first goal is to make an electrical 12V pump suck water out of a bottle.</p>

<p>As we were reading tutorials online we noticed that many people hook up a driver such as the l293 to their arduino in order to control the pump (essentially a brushed DC motor).</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/l293.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/l293.pdf</a></p>

<p>Our pump is 12V 4.2 W.</p>

<p>My question is do we really need a driver like that for just activating / deactivating the pump ?</p>

<p>In my understanding the driver offers an H-bridge setup allowing to control up to two motors in both directions. </p>

<p>Are there any other reasons to prefer this driver instead of a simple MOSFET / Transistor setup with such a simple use case like ours ?</p>

<p>Thank you for your help.</p>

<p>Best regards</p>
 23644: <p>Unless you wish to reverse the direction of the pump without reconnecting the wires in the opposite way, there is no need for a L293. A MOSFET that operates as a switch should be sufficient in your case. You can also try to PWM it and reduce/control the water flow.</p>
