Embedded Webblog

PC/104 architecture offers designers a wide variety of low-cost, off-the-shelf modules for reduced budget or short turn-around projects. For example, ACCES I/O Products recently announced a new line of PC/104 quadrature input boards supporting embedded motion control, instrumentation, robotics, industrial machinery, and process control applications. The 104-QUAD-8 series suits users in the motion control market looking for 4, 6, or 8-channels of encoder inputs. The modules are based on the LSI Computer Systems 24-bit dual axis quadrature counter LS7266R1featuring digital filtering, interrupts, and flexible programming. These PC/104 utility boards feature three conditioned differential inputs including indexing per channel. The eight pins per channel are accessed via two 34-pin Insulation Displacement Contact (IDC) type headers. The boards are supported for use in most operating systems and include a free DOS, Linux, and Windows compatible software package containing sample programs and source code in "C" for DOS, Visual Basic, Delphi, C++ Builder, and Visual C++ for Windows. The Model 104-QUAD-8 series modules are available now starting at $195 for the 4 channel version.