I want to measure the frequency of the incoming signal using PIC 16F887

I am not sure how to measure frequencies like eg. 2.3 Hz or 3.7 Hz

i also want to display it on LCD

If you have any idea please let me know

Thanks

 

The usual method is to define something about the periodic waveform of interest that you can detect like a peak value, low to high transition, or zero crossing. Then you can either count the number of times per second that the event occurs or you can measure the elapsed time between two successive events and take the reciprocal to get the frequency.

 

i am not clear with your idea

 

i am using a timer and I want to measure the frequency using that timer

 

i have defined a timer TMR0

how should I measure the frequency of incoming signal ?

Please let me know

 

Can you be more specific about what part of Papabravo's post you do not understand?

Have you done any research? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_counter

 

I have defined one of the ports as an input port in PIC 16f887

Then when I connect the function generator to that port I wish to see the same frequency I set on generator whether its 2.7 Hz or 27 Hz etc

I didn't understand counting the number of events per second
which event????

 

Here is a complete project using a PIC16F628 as a simple frequency counter:
http://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/freq_counter/freq_counter.html

You will have to adapt the code to a PIC16F887, or use a PIC16F628.

 

Hi RG23,

You need a timer to be at 10Hz (if you want 1 decimal), 100HZ (if you want 2 decimals), and so on... You will need a counter variable, so for every timer interrupt, have your counter increment, i.e. counter++;

Then you need an interrupt, since you are using PIC16F887, it will have to be on RB0/INT, so connect your incoming signal on that pin.
The counter should have your time since last interrupt, so display that value, you need to display "counter / 100" (for 2 decimals). Then right after that reset the counter back to 0 (zero).

PS. What programming language do you plan to write this in?

 

Assembly language

 

Thank you for your suggestion

 

Then you need an interrupt, since you are using PIC16F887, it will have to be on RB0/INT, so connect your incoming signal on that pin.
The counter should have your time since last interrupt, so display that value, you need to display "counter / 100" (for 2 decimals). Then right after that reset the counter back to 0 (zero).

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I am not clear with that

 

can you please simplify?

 

Never mind my explanation, the link given by SgtWookie is much better

 

i have still not figured out the problem

I would appreciate any further help

Thanks

 

Hi RG23,

You need a timer to be at 10Hz (if you want 1 decimal), 100HZ (if you want 2 decimals), and so on... You will need a counter variable, so for every timer interrupt, have your counter increment, i.e. counter++;
<snip>

You have me confused, which is not too unusual. I thought that the sample had to be 10 times LONGER to get 0.1 resolution and 100 times LONGER to get 0.01 resolution for low Hertz frequencies i.e. 1/10 Hz for 1 decimal and 1/100 Hz for 2 decimals. Can you enlighten me?

 

i have still not figured out the problem

I would appreciate any further help

Thanks

Did you see the link I posted in reply #8?
It's a complete project, that seems to be well-documented.
It even has the assembly language source code posted.

You will need to convert the souce code from a PIC16F628 to a PC16F887, or simply use a PIC16F628 as the author did.

 

yes it is well documented but unfortunately too long for me to understand

 

Is there any other alternative method easy to understand???????

 

You could set up the timer to measure the length of each pulse. The reciprocal of this is the frequency. Unfortunately doing a reciprocal on an 8-bit PIC will be a nightmare. Instead, I'd recommend you could the number of pulses in 10 seconds. 27 pulses = 2.7 Hz.