Hi Folks,
I've built a PC interface that utilizes the parallel port and polls switches via addressing multiple16 input multiplex chips (4097s). To maximize lines I used SIPOs to select both chip (0-7) and input (0-15). However my polling loop maxes out at about 30-40ms because of this bottleneck and often polls more slowly as the software acts immediately on this info and can bog things if there are a lot of events assigned to switches (average 60ms).
I have tried using quadrature rotaries with this interface using a decoder based on the PIC16F676. They work okay but it appears I'm missing a lot of the output (monitoring a digital display that should increment/decrement in response to the rotary). The designer advised me that they were programmed for use with a 10ms polling loop in a microcontroller circuit but that with a few modifications they could be "tuned" to a 60ms polling loop.
I haven't had a chance to program the chips with his new firmware but will be trying soon. However could someone verify that one can in fact "tune" the output of a decoder to accomodate a slower polling speed and that I might see better performance e.g. less "misses" and smoother increment/decrement? I'm thinking of designing my own decoder around an
8051 but wondering if it is reasonable to expect I can use quadrature rotaries with an interface that polls at 60ms intervals. I know the 8051 can handle the decoding but can I get meaningful info into the PC at its
60ms rate on the other side of the decoder? How slow can I go ?
Thanks!
Scott