Extremely simple counter ideas?

Hi,
I want to trigger and count "events". Events may be voltage pulses, audio pulses etc, I do not care.
What I want is the counter to be very simple to build. The counter will have a maximum of 36 counts.

I consider all short of solutions, mechanichal gears or rolls, discrete electronics etc.

Any ideas?

Hi,

How will the output be read? Is it only count upwards or down as well? How is the signal captured and what voltage level(s)?

You could cascade two (CD)4026s or (CD) 4033s and read the pulse count on seven-segment displays, or cascade two (CD)4017s and light up LEDs to show pulse count - both options with units and tens. Both sets of output signals can be digitized, hard work though.

Messy/not 100% precise: if pulses come fast enough together, setting x mV from each pulse to charge a capacitor incrementally and using a DMM voltmeter to read mV or V as equivalent to the number of pulses.

Look at coulumb counters, they are an option: an integrator with fixed-duration input pulses to increment Vout by 100mV steps (and a comparator to alert when it reaches 36/3.6V if needed?).

An accurate 36 Hz astable oscillator and the events triggered signal during 1 second into an AND gate could also be fed into any counter IC, in practice it would be +-1 count inaccurate more often than not.

... Or a (doubtful...) 37 step stepper motor with a numbered face from 0 to 36, like a speedo/clock face.

CD4018 too ... ( divide by 6, and then again )

Demo how to cascade two 4017 IC's (per post #2). Event pulses go to righthand input.

LED's indicate tens and ones columns. The tens column advances each time the ones column recycles.
The count shows your specified maximum, 36.

d123 said:

... Or a (doubtful...) 37 step stepper motor with a numbered face from 0 to 36, like a speedo/clock face.

Click to expand...

Is there such a motor with so many steps?
It could be used as a generator of pulses (encoder) as well as a pulse decoder

Hi,

I doubt 37, that would be 9.729°/step... 10°, yes, but that's only 36 steps so you need to use step 0 as step 36. 5° is another option. Or an 18° stepper motor on half-steps but wouldn't go full circle to represent 36 pulses, only halfway. If you can find a 9° stepper, which I bet you can, that's 40 steps: step 0 + 36 counts = 37 steps and three steps left over.

7.5 degree stepper is quite common.

There are however vague points in the original question and also open details with the stepper solution.
1.

I want to trigger and count "events". Events may be voltage pulses, audio pulses etc, I do not care.

Click to expand...

A trigger circuit that generates step pulses from the input signal wasn't yet addressed. In case of "audio pulses" e.g. rectifier, level comparator, 4 (full-step) or 8 state (half-step) sequencer.
2. When and how shall the mechanical counter be reset, e.g. the stepper return to an initial zero position?

Can you code ?

1) How many channels of counters ?
2) Max rate of pulses to be counted ?
3) What do you do with the counter data ? Display it or send to PC ?
4) Audio pulses, what characteristics of an audio pulse qualifies to be counted ?
Freq burst, amplitude,....?
5) Does a count trigger another event, like turn something on ?
6) You count to a max of 36, is that over a time period ?



Regards, Dana.

Hi,

I did this yesterday but couldn't do the simulation until today. For a very simple signal conditioning circuit, this came to mind. Useless for audio signals and dual-supply signals...



Hi,

I remembered a 230V AC ZCD simulation from ages ago so put the above piecewise linear signal into it and added a pathetic kind of sine wave at the end. It's a rudimentary circuit and that -12mA is unwelcome, but maybe the ZCD level could be adapted for audio over x mV rather than 0V. Maybe someone has a lower-parts-count solution as this one seems a lot with five different ICs, unless you ditch the 4050 buffer and use double NOTs instead and swap AND for one unused OR gate plus another hex inverter, but that's still four ICs.