Hey all, I apologize as im still a little new to this.
I have a project where I need to accurately monitor a rotating shaft. I have picked up an expensive optical rotary encoder from BMI, with a resolution of 500 pulse/turn. On average the shaft will be turned "maybe" 1 revolution a minute so 8-10 pulses a second. I only need to monitor rotation in one direction, and after XXX number of turns I need to send a signal to another Arduino to trigger a series of relays. For the encoders controller I am using a mega 2560.
From the standpoint of programming I know there are a number of examples out there, but many are giving the suggestion that they may not be able to deal with high resolution encoders, I have also read suggestions of using interrupts (still learning about those) but im not 100% sure if that would work or not... Am I barking up the wrong tree wanting to use an arduino for this? is there somethign better or should a Mega be able to handle it?
Additionally I Ideally would like to be able to use the mega for monitoring temperatures from a series of probes and then dump the data back via the ethernet sheild + to some serial LCDs, (which I know is very doable) but would combining this counting system with temperature monitoring be too much?
thanks for all the input
-walker