August 27, 2014
What’s the difference between a brushless motor with a commutating encoder and a brush motor? Well, the brushes of course. And, without brushes – the need for a commutating encoder for current carrying. Yeah, but what does that mean? The principle behind the internal working of both a brushless DC...
August 10, 2014
Sometimes you don’t have the right tools to do the job. Let’s say you needed to identify where the index pulse was firing on your incremental encoder, but you left your oscilloscope in your other jacket pocket, and now all you have on hand is a Digital Multimeter (DMM). Well...
August 2, 2014
What’s with this Black-White Wire? Quantum devices QR145 and QR200 optical encoders feature an extra black & white striped wire that serves as an alternate grounding connection for the encoder. This wire is intended to be used in situations where the encoder flex mount is not case grounded. The Black/White...
July 28, 2014
Seeing Encoder Quadrature with a Two-Channel Scope I received an e-mail from a customer concerned about the “out of control” optical encoder signals he was seeing on his Oscilloscope. The photo below shows the type of signal he was seeing: The encoder in question was a 10,000 Line Count optical...
July 19, 2014
O. Another Way to Mount an Optical Encoder Instead of using an end bell, a lot of our motor manufacturer customers recess the QD145 optical encoder into an extended motor housing and then seal the motor with an endplate. This has the advantage of being a lower cost item to...
June 29, 2014
Which Encoder Wires Should I Use to Begin Understanding Incremental Encoder Signals? Channels A & B (Incremental Channels) Use only A (or only B) for an RPM or counting applications where the rotation is either unidirectional, or where you don’t need to know direction. Use A and B together to...
June 17, 2014
Gray code was named for Frank Gray, a Bell labs researcher, who patented the procession in 1953, even though a form of it was used by Emile Baudot for telegraphy as early as 1878. The most important thing to understand about Gray code is that only one bit changes from...
June 4, 2014
May 6, 2014
How to Build a Portable Incremental Encoder Tester Every once in while, it’s nice to have a handheld device that can be used to see quickly if encoder signals are present. I designed and built a quick-tester that allows for fast interface to an encoder without having to drag out...
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