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Forum: FPGA, VHDL & Verilog Rpm detector vhdl


von ChrisChris (Guest)


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Hi guys, I am looking to add a rpm detector to my project to help smooth 
things out. I currently have a 8 bit encoder attached to a shaft that 
will run up to 8000 rpm and I would like to detect rpm at least 8 times 
per revolution for internal use, may output to some led's or logic 
analyzer to ensure it's working correctly. I am using a lattice machxo2 
and 50mhz on board osc. I was thinking of have a 16bit value 
representing rpm. I have an understanding of what I have to do, just 
curious if anyone has a proven and sound method of doing this. I already 
have the encoder inputs filtered for a single clock wide pulse output 
for the 8 points. I would appreciate any help or guidance. Thank you, 
Chris.

von Lothar M. (Company: Titel) (lkmiller) (Moderator)


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ChrisChris wrote:
> a 8 bit encoder
What kind of "8 bit encoder" is that? Ist one revolution equal to 256 
steps? Do you have a link to such a thing?

> I would like to detect rpm at least 8 times per revolution
Is your system that dynamical?

> to a shaft that will run up to 8000 rpm
What kind of motor is that? A gasoline engine?

> I was thinking of have a 16bit value representing rpm.
Then you want a resolution of 0.1 rpm?
Ok, to get that accuracy througout the whole rpm range (even from 7999.9 
to 8000.0) you must measure 1/8 of a turn with 65535 counts. At maximum 
freqeuncy this is  8000rpm = 133rps => 133Hz * 8 = 1064 => 1064Hz*65535 
= 70MHz.
So all in all with the 50MHz oscillator you will be slightly worse than 
your desired 16 bit accuracy at maximum rpm.

> I have an understanding of what I have to do
Count the time for 1/8 turns and the reciprocal value is your rpm (maybe 
a little bit scaling is necessary...).

von ChrisChris (Guest)


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The encoder is a quadrature, 256cpr, decoded in fpga to a plus/minus 
counter, I thought it through a little more today, I guess that I don't 
specifically need to know the rpm exactly, I'm just trying to make 
variables based on 50rpm increments, so between 0-50rpm I'll have the 
first led indicate, and 50-100 and so on. So I'll basically just create 
a counter from clk to binary and focus on the MSB's that are within the 
ranges I need?

von Lothar M. (Company: Titel) (lkmiller) (Moderator)


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ChrisChris wrote:
> So I'll basically just create a counter from clk to binary and focus on
> the MSB's that are within the ranges I need?
Thats the big picture, yes (although a "counter from clk to binary" is a 
little bit figurative: usually its only a "counter running on clk", 
because most of the counter inside an FPGA are binary).

What I would do: generate a saturating counter counting with that 100MHz 
clock frequency. So that counter is an integer from 0 to 
100MHz/((49/60)Hz*8) --> 0..15000000 (at 0 rpm its no need to count 
longer than at 50 rpm because 0..50rpm targets the same "frequency 
range").

And then i would let run that counter for 32 steps of the quad decoder 
and afterwards simply check the range as you proposed.

von ChrisChris (Guest)


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Interesting, so I need to figure out how to use the internal PLL and 
bring the clock up to 100mhz for this process, which would be nice for 
the rest of my system too, except my bit banged spi. I got it to work, 
so far by checking 4 points per revolution, for every 100rpm higher I 
divide the timer by +1, ex  if freq < 3_755_000 and freq >= 1_877_500 
then leds<= "11111110" (3755000\2). then next was 3755000/3 and so on.

von Lothar M. (Company: Titel) (lkmiller) (Moderator)


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ChrisChris wrote:
> Interesting, so I need to figure out how to use the internal PLL and
> bring the clock up to 100mhz for this process,
In fact the 50MHz clock ist fast enough also. After a few calculations 
you will find out: 170kHz is the limit, so even counting 500kHz will do 
the trick...

> except my bit banged spi.
You really do SPI in software on a FPGA?

von ChrisChris (Guest)


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It's just a single master, it does 1 dummy and 2 requests , then I snag 
the 12 out of 14 bits in the register. I'm very new to fpga, I'm a year 
in on designing electronics for a small company, but we use avr and arm 
and I just make the electronics work and design the boards/bom. The boss 
does the C coding. It takes me a little bit longer to catch onto the 
software side, like using the internal flash and hardened spi , I just 
get overwhelmed,  all of my code is in a single .vhd cause I haven't 
figured out how to separate them yet. I'm learning as I go, been on this 
single project for almost a year. With the bit banged spi I can use any 
pins I want which really helped with routing my board too, straight 
connections. I want and need to learn more, my only time for my project 
comes in around 10pm to 3am, few hours of sleep (2-3) then of to work. 
Most of my of work time is with my two girls and my wife.

von Lothar M. (Company: Titel) (lkmiller) (Moderator)


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ChrisChris wrote:
> With the bit banged spi I can use any pins I want which really helped
> with routing my board too, straight connections.
What do you mean with "bit banged SPI"? Is it software? Or is it VHDL?

Just to do one step back: SPI is simply a shift register.
See the pics there: http://www.lothar-miller.de/s9y/archives/15-SPI.html
Therefore its fairly easy to run it at high speed...
Here is one in VHDL: 
http://www.lothar-miller.de/s9y/categories/45-SPI-Master

> all of my code is in a single .vhd cause I haven't figured out how to
> separate them yet.
Just wirte some more modules in some vhdl files. Add them to your 
project and use the module as a component in the "top level" module.
You can see that there: 
http://www.lothar-miller.de/s9y/archives/57-Sinusausgabe-mit-PWM.html
The "top-level" is SinusPWM, it uses the two VHDL modules DDFS and 
PWM as components.
And the best is: the testbench is just a VHDL entity without ports. It 
uses the top-level SinusPWM as a component.

Or you can see that there: the entity Totzeit is used as a component 
in the top-level PWM_Totzeit, which could also be implemented in the 
SinusPWM for dead time generation.


All in all you must be aware: VHDL is NOT a programming language because 
its name is not VH-P-L. It is a description language. And to 
describe something you must have a picture of it. So at first you 
must have a kind of schematic or sketch with functions blocks. Then you 
can describe it...

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