It’s a small 16-pin SSOP-16 chip that uses a ring of Hall-effect devices to make a 10-bit encoder. The shaft has a rotating magnet and the surface of the chip is mounted about 1.5 mm from the magnet.
The chip provides a SSI absolute position, standard quadrature outputs and even a PWM analog output reflecting the current position.
I understand that the chip is about $4.00 in large quantities.
I purchased and have in my possession the $100 AS5040 demoboard. It connects to the PC’s USB port (which also powers it) and has a little magnet on a knob to simulate the rotating shaft. A on-board micro drives a 4-digit display showing the angle of the shaft. There’s a nice PC application that demonstrates all the encoder’s functions. It works fine with Windows XP but I was unable to get the ap to install on Windows 2000.
I’d be willing to loan it to you for a couple of weeks if you’re interested.
Yep, we got it. That thing’s pretty cool! We only got to play with it briefly last night, but were impressed none-the-less. Nothing says “hi-tech” more than blinking LEDs!
Seems like these chips need some really nice high-power magnets. We are so nerdy, we enjoyed playing with the magnets almost as much as the eval board.
To get this chip to work with encoders, you would have to mount the magnet within 0.5mm of the center of the axle of a motor or lead screw. Hot-glue ain’t going to cut it.
We really need to get that eval board going back to you…
