More counts than should be

[RJE]

Greetings

I have 5 flow sensors that provide a pulsed signal via a reed type switch. Each sensor feeds a hardware debounce circuit then to a multiplexer which feeds one U3 counter input. I'm using CIO0 - 2 as the address lines and CIO3 as the enable line to the multiplexer.

When I use the LJ control panel and force the CIO lines, scoping the counter input shows a clean square wave with a duty cycle of about 84%. Frequencies range from 7 Hz to 18 Hz. Given the circuits the flow sensors are in, this is what I would expect.

My script is just to cycle through each flow sensor and check for proper flow count. Don't need anything fast here and basically is:

Reset counter

Enable counter

Set CIO0 - 2 for address

Set multiplexer output enable ON

Delay 1

Set multiplexer output enable OFF

Get counter value and show in a V channel

Repeat for next sensor

The script works fine but I am getting too many counts for a 1 second delay, about 4 times as many.

Am I doing this right or is there a more proper way to perform this?

Thanks

Randy

[AzeoTech]

I can't say completely, but you'll almost certainly need to post your .ctl doc since there are a lot of details that could be missed. I however, am going to pass this off to LabJack since its likely more hardware related with the mux. I'm also moving this to the LabJack part of our forum.

[LabJackSupport]

Perhaps the problem is being caused by noise produced my the mux's switching. Here are a couple things to try.

1) Rearrange your code to look like this:

Enable mux

wait 10ms

enable counter

wait 1s

read counter

disable mux

2) Use a timer in counter debounce mode instead of a counter: http://labjack.com/support/u3/users-guide/2.9.1.6

[RJE]

My 1 run trial script is as follows:

// resevoir flow sensor

eput (ID1, LJ_ioPUT_COUNTER_RESET, 1, 0, 0, 0) // reset counter 1

ePut (ID1, LJ_ioPUT_DIGITAL_PORT, 16, 0, 3, 0) // set S0, S1, S2 to to 0, 0, 0

ePut (ID1, LJ_ioPUT_COUNTER_ENABLE, 1, 1, 0, 0) // enable counter 1

ePut (ID1, LJ_ioPUT_DIGITAL_BIT, 19, 0, 0, 0) // set enable line low

Delay(1) //accummalate counts

ePut (ID1, LJ_ioPUT_DIGITAL_BIT, 19, 1, 0, 0) // set enable line high

eGet (ID1, LJ_ioGET_COUNTER, 1, @Count_0, 0) //get counter value

ePut (ID1, LJ_ioPUT_COUNTER_ENABLE, 1, 0, 0, 0) //disable counter

private flow_0 = ((Count_0 / 3) * 0.307) //calc LPM (3/8" hose factor)

v.RES_Flow.AddValue(flow_0) //update virtual channel

No matter what the Delay is I get the 4 times the real count should be. Funny thing is if I would set the Delay to about 20 seconds or so and measure the frequency with my Fluke meter I would get the same Hz reading (about 4 times as high).

I'll try the above script suggestion and if that doesn't work I'll switch to timers. I have extra ones now that I can take one timer PWM out, push it through a line driver which can drive several PWM controlled analog voltage sources.

Thanks for the help.