In a recent email, Julian Lana-Sarrate, an independent embedded designer, described a good method for confirming the operation of a rotary encoder using a rising edge-count measurement. He included ...

There are many ways you can read a rotary encoder. Some are probably better than my method. Also, these cheap mechanical encoders are terrible.

For their Hackaday Prize project, [besenyeim] is doing it differently: they’re using motors as coupled inductors, and it looks like this is a viable way to turn a motor into an encoder.

A rotary encoder is an electro-mechanical device for converting the angular position of a shaft or axle to a digital code. For many applications and equipment that need to track object location, ...

The encoders’ special properties are that they have a very compact design, excellent signal quality and therefore high interpolation rates, as well as excellent thermal position stability. The ...