You can use a circuit directly coupled to the Serial port of the PC to accumulate the counts and have the PC process the "data" accordingly....

If you are familiar with Visual Basic and the use of the MSComm Control object this would be fairly easy and straight forward....

Here is a simple circuit that can be used to interface to a 5 volt TTL circuit to a serial port of a computer.... every time there is a positive pulse on the optocoupler, the serial port ring indicator will go high... this can be tracked with the MSComm controls OnComm Event....

Make sure to enable DTR in the MSComm controls property to power the output side of the optocoupler...

View attachment 21341

B. Morse

Dear Mr. Morse,

I tried to build the circuit you mentioned in this post and connected it to my PC but could not read any pulse.
I did not use an optocoupler for the signal instead I used 5 VDC power supply as a source to produce a single pulse and test.
I think may be this is problem.
Please advise.

Thank you
Sabry Kozman


Mod Edit : please don't hijack other member's post.
This thread was split from Pulse counter to PC file -- and asked for #2.

 

Im not really sure what you mean by using a 5 volt signal as a pulse source, are you just connecting 5 volts to the serial ports pin #9? It has to be low, then go to 5 volts, you cannot leave it just floating. what application do you have running on the PC to accept the pulse?

 

Im not really sure what you mean by using a 5 volt signal as a pulse source, are you just connecting 5 volts to the serial ports pin #9? It has to be low, then go to 5 volts, you cannot leave it just floating. what application do you have running on the PC to accept the pulse?

I used a DC power supply instead of the 5V DC opto coupler at the input. I used the circuit from you earlier post attached. I used the VB example you posted also with this circuit.

 

are you still using the pull down resistor shown in the diagram tied to pin #5 of the serial port? You will need to keep the ring indicator line #9 low with the resistor tied to ground.

 

Dear Mr. Morse

Can you please inform me about the model and part number for the slotted disk sensor?