What is a square wave or pulse output?
• A square wave describes one of the output choices of an encoder. If viewed on an oscilloscope, the square wave looks like this: It represents the on/off conditions of the sensing circuit. An “ON” condition is sometimes described as “HIGH” and an “OFF” condition is described as “LOW”. One entire pulse, 360, equals 180 of an “ON” condition and 180 of an “OFF” condition. When the “ON” and “OFF” conditions are exactly 180 of the entire waveform, this is called a 50/50 duty cycle. The duty cycle can sometimes vary, and will be expressed as 50, X%, with “X” being the amount of variation that one could expect.
