Encoder Counting

[holographicpencil]

Hi everyone,

Not sure if this is the correct place or not but here goes,

Looking for some way of using a pulse up/pulse down encoder to output an analog voltage. Is there a simple way of doing this with some sort of IC or is this a more complicated undertaking?

Jack

[DaJMasta]

What is your voltage representing?

If just activity or speed, you could use a low pass filter with a bleeder resistor.

If you actually want a counter, you could plug the encoder pulse into a 74 series counter of however many bits and configure the outputs as an R2R ladder DAC.

[holographicpencil]

Thanks for that,

I literally just want a 4 position rotary switch but it needs to reset to the zero position when the power is cycled so a mechanical rotary switch is not the best option for this.

Does that make it clearer?

Jack

[oPossum]

I don't know of anything with 4 steps, but this will do 64... http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/20001978D.pdf

[DaJMasta]

Is it a quadrature encoder?  If so, you can use the two signals to read the quadrant exactly, so you could just get some logic gates and get your four output signals (or convert them to differing voltages or whatnot).

[Smokey]

Simple with a micro and DAC.

If if has to be processor-free, how about feeding the encoder pulse output into a ripple carry counter which addresses a parallel input DAC?

[[edit]] DaJMasta already suggested essentially the same thing.