Smart Electronics 360 Degree Rotary Potentiometer Digital Pulse Output Digital Rotary Encoder Module Rotary Potentiometer

Working voltage: 5V

Number of pulses per revolution: 20

The rotary encoder can be rotated to count the number of pulses output during forward and reverse 

rotation. Unlike potentiometers, there is no limit to the number of rotations that can be counted. 

With the key on the rotary encoder, it can be reset to the initial state, i.e. counting from 0.

Principle of operation:

An incremental encoder is a rotary sensor that converts rotational displacement into a series of 

digital pulse signals. These pulses are used to control the angular displacement. The conversion of 

angular displacement in Eltra encoders utilizes the photoelectric scanning principle. The readout 

system is based on the rotation of a radial indexing disk (code disk) consisting of alternating 

light-transmitting and light-opaque windows, illuminated vertically at the same time by a source 

of infrared light, which projects the image of the code disk onto the surface of a receiver. The 

receiver is covered with a diffraction grating which has the same window width as the code disk. 

The work of the receiver is to sense the changes produced by the rotation of the disk and then 

convert the optical changes into corresponding electrical changes. The low level signal is then 

raised to a higher level and produces square pulses without any interference, which must be 

processed by electronic circuits. Readout systems usually use differential methods, that is, two 

different signals with the same waveform but a phase difference of 180 ° are compared in order 

to improve the quality and stability of the output signal. The readout is formed on the basis of 

the difference between the two signals, thus eliminating interference.