Just wondering what an engineer would do in this situation: -
You want to control a linear actuator by modulating a duty cycle signal to a vacuum solenoid which tries to pull the actuator open or shut. This part of the design is rigid, i.e it can't be altered by the engineer.
However, by using the mentioned duty cycle signal, you can alter the position of the actuator more or less accurately, however you have a problem as the frequency output by the pic is way too high for the vacuum solenoid to respond. You really want to hit 8hz, but without clocking the pic stupidly low!
Is there any sort of logic chip or timer that can be used to generate a pwm at such a low frequency, using either a digital input for the value wanted, or would an engineer be bound to manually writing a routine in code to emulate his own duty cycle signal from a digital output on the pic?
thoughts?
cheers
Kris
You want to control a linear actuator by modulating a duty cycle signal to a vacuum solenoid which tries to pull the actuator open or shut. This part of the design is rigid, i.e it can't be altered by the engineer.
However, by using the mentioned duty cycle signal, you can alter the position of the actuator more or less accurately, however you have a problem as the frequency output by the pic is way too high for the vacuum solenoid to respond. You really want to hit 8hz, but without clocking the pic stupidly low!
Is there any sort of logic chip or timer that can be used to generate a pwm at such a low frequency, using either a digital input for the value wanted, or would an engineer be bound to manually writing a routine in code to emulate his own duty cycle signal from a digital output on the pic?
thoughts?
cheers
Kris
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