Encoders
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These are small electromechanical precision devices which convert the angular position of a mechanical shaft to which they are coupled into electrically evaluable coded data. They are also known by the names angle sensors, angle transmitters and angle encoders.
Basically a difference is made between incremental and absolute systems. Starting from a photo-electronically sampled marked disk, incremental systems deliver increments in the form of signal pulses to an evaluation electronics of up to 10,000 pulses per revolution. Detrimental is, however, that they can only register the position in the switched-on state which requires the travel to a known reference point each time after being switched on. Absolute systems deliver the absolutely encoded position of the shaft for each revolution to the evaluation electronics which makes them fail-safe. For an absolute angle measurement over several revolutions, multiturn encoders can be used. They generally consist of several coupled code disks over a precise area or a single-turn part that is coupled with a revolution counter.
