RV COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING®
(Autonomous Institution affiliated to VTU, Belagavi )
Analysis and Design of Digital
Circuits
Experiential Learning
Title
DIGITAL TACHOMETER
Submitted by
SOURAB S
Submitted to
Dr. Sujata D Badiger
Assistant Professor
R.V. College of Engineering
R V College of Engineering, Bengaluru-59
(Autonomous Institution affiliated to VTU, Belagavi )
ABSTRACT
The need for precise, accurate and real-time measurement of speed in
automobiles, industries, etc. have become a necessity in today’s life so as to
prevent damage and loss of material in equipment’s. Due to this early
detection in changes of speed of the moving parts of equipment’s damage
and loss of material in these equipment’s can be prevented and fixed before
any real damage is done. Such parameters mentioned above is satisfied by
tachometer.
The tachometer is a measuring instrument that is used to measure the
operating speed of an engine in revolutions per minute(rpm). There are two
types of tachometer such as contact tachometer which measures the rpm with
physical contact with the moving part, non-contact tachometer measures the
rpm without having any physical contact with the moving part. Contact
tachometer are inefficient and tend to reduce the speed of the object resulting
in inaccurate measurement of its speed, hence non-contact tachometer are
preferred. Non-contact tachometers are very efficient in rpm measurement
and these are widely used in industries and high end automobiles. Thus the
main objective of this paper is to design and simulate a digital non-contact
tachometer to measure RPM and Frequency of the motor.
INTRODUCTION
In this project, we are designing a digital tachometer using an Arduino uno
and a lcd display to display the rpm of the motor. For the speed measurement
of the motor an IR transmitter and a receiver is used and for a reflecting
surface a white dot paper is painted on one face of the motor. The basic
concept behind this is that when the motor shaft rotates such that the white
spots comes in contact with the sensor, the IR rays are reflected by the dot
and falls on the IR receiver as shown in the diagram below. The photo diode,
which is used as the IR receiver, starts conducting whenever the IR rays are
reflected. This output of the receiver is given in the form of pulse to the
Arduino which takes it as a timer input and the Arduino is programmed to
calculate the no. of times the motor rotates in a second which is then used to
calculate the rpm of the motor. But since we will be doing a simulation the
frequency of the motor is directly fed to the Arduino and the rpm is
calculated from this frequency.
The 555-timer circuit along with LM358N comparator is used to provide
PWM control to the motor whose speed is to be calculated. The setup as
shown in the diagram below can be used to vary the frequency and duty
cycle of the motor simultaneously. As the frequency of the motor is varied
the rpm reading changes accordingly.
COMPONENTS REQUIRED
● NE555 Timer
● Resistors R1=3k ohm, R2=3k ohm, POT 3K and 10k
● Capacitor C1-100nF, C2-10nF.
● Dc motor, two Leds.
● Connecting wires
● Power source, IRF540, IN4007, LM358N, Arduino uno and LM016L
display.
Block diagram and working principle
The motor driver which consists of the 555-timer circuit gives a PWM
output to the dc motor of a certain frequency and duty cycle as per the
variable pot values in the setup. The output from the comparator is fed to the
motor as well as an input to the Arduino. The Arduino is programmed such
that it calculates the time for the motor was on (Ton) and also when it is off
(Toff) such that the time period of the PWM input is T= Ton+ Toff. The
frequency at which the motor is driven is calculated by F=1/T which is
displayed on the lcd display. Then the RPM is calculated as per the formula:
RPM=(F*60*2) / (No. of poles in the motor).
where the no. of poles in a dc motor is 2.
As the frequency of the motor is increased, the rpm of the motor increases
and it is displayed in the lcd display. To show how that the ir transmitter-
receiver actually works, two Led’s each represented as IR Transmitter and
IR Receiver is added to the circuit such that every time the motor finishes
one revolution , the led represented as the IR Receiver is switched on to
show that it has received the reflection from the IR Transmitter.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[I] www. [Link]
[2] [Link]
[3] Paul Horowitz, Winfield Hill - The Art of Electronics
