control incremental encoder

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Thread Starter

Derek

how to indicate incremental encoder reading through parallel port. Is parallel port able to control an 10 bit incremental encoder. Programming language in C++. What does it mean by 10 bit encoder.
 
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Robert Scott

The term "10-bit encoder" is meaningless in an incremental encoder. An incremental encoders has only two bits (three if you count the index pulse). It requires a special counter card that takes the A phase and B phase and translates them into up counts and down counts. You can't do that through a parallel port unless someone is making a quadrature encoder board that interfaces with a parallel port.

The term "10-bit encoder" is meaningful when applied to absolute (not incremental) encoders. In that case it means that one revolution of the shaft produces 1024 different codes. You might be able to read that with a parallel port if you could use two status input bits in addition to the eight data bits.
 
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