Encoder interrupts Why?

[jdolecki]

A lot of encoder programs use interrupts.

My robot arm has six axis with encoders. A/b pulse, index and a home position switch.

Anyone know of an example program for 6 axis I could look at?

What I read already. But don’t understand it.

“ If you wanted to ensure that a program always caught the pulses from a rotary encoder, so that it never misses a pulse, it would make it very tricky to write a program to do anything else, because the program would need to constantly poll the sensor lines for the encoder, in order to catch pulses when they occurred”

[Paul_KD7HB]

To ensure any of the sensor transitions will not be missed.

[groundFungus]

If pulses come too often for polling, interrupts may be necessary. Like for monitoring speed and/or position of a motor.

For a manually actuated encoder and well written code, interrupts are not necessary.

[jremington]

Using interrupts does not guarantee that you won't miss a pulse, and may not work at all, especially with a slow, 16MHz Arduino and 12 interrupt sources (six encoders each with A&B outputs).

[Hutkikz]

Here is a good article detailing the difficulties when using encoders and the different methods to solve them: TronicsBench: Rotary Encoder