Design and Implementation of A Digital Tachometer

International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology
Volume No.5 Issue No.1, pp: 85-87
ISSN:2277-1581
01 Jan.2016
Design and Implementation of a Digital Tachometer

Md. Masud Rana, Md. Sahabuddin, Shourov Mondol
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Jessore University of Science and Technology,
Jessore-7408, Bangladesh.
Corresponding Email : mmrana.3012@gmail.com
Abstract: Tachometer is a measuring instrument used for II. Hardware and Software Tools
measuring the speed of a rotating body. The unit of measured
speed by tachometer is expressed in revolution per minute or Hardware Tools:
RPM. Tachometers were purely mechanical in past. In that
Arduino-UNO board.
time, the speed measuring parameters were sent to the
IR (infrared) transmitter diode.
tachometer through mechanical coupling (cable or shaft) and
Phototransistor.
the rpm is measured using a gear mechanism and it is
LCD display.
identified using needle mechanism. The tachometers have
Transistor (2N2222).
changed a lot due to rapid development of modern electronics.
Resistors (100, 22k).
This article is for a contactless digital tachometer using
Potentiometer (10k).
Arduino. Here the speed of the motor is also controlled. The
Diode (1N4007).
RPM, the duty cycle and other information are displayed on a
LCD screen.
Software Tools:
Keywords Tachometer, LCD-Display, RPM, Arduino, IR
Arduino 1.0.5 r2.
LED, Phototransistor, Diode, Light, Speed.
I. In tro du ctio n
Tachometer is an essential instrument in this modern era of A Brief History of Arduino-UNO Board:
industrialization. In industry it is necessary to control the speed
of motor at a definite RPM and for this counting of RPM is
essential. Tachometer is an instrument used for measuring the
number of revolution of an object in a given interval of time.
Usually it is expressed in revolution per minute or RPM. Earlier
tachometers are purely mechanical where the revolution is
transferred to the tachometer through mechanical coupling
(cable or shaft), the rpm is determined using a gear mechanism
and it is displayed on a dial. With the advent of modern
electronics, the tachometers have changed a lot. This project is
about a contactless digital tachometer using Arduino. The speed
of the motor can also be controlled with the circuit.
Project Objective:
The project aims at designing a system to count the speed of a
motor in revolution per minute and to control the speed of a dc
motor. In industry for various purposes it is necessary to control
the speed of motor at a specific revolution per minute (RPM).
Block Diagram:
The block diagram of this digital tachometer includes the
sensor part, control circuit, Arduino-UNO board, a LCD display
and a dc motor.
Fig. 2: Arduino-UNO board [1].
Fig. 1: Block diagram of a digital tachometer.
doi : 10.17950/ijset/v5s1/118
Arduino-UNO at a glance:
The Arduino Uno is a microcontroller based board. It contains
the ATmega328 microcontroller. This board contains 14 digital
input/output pins. Among these pins, 6 pins can be used as
PWM outputs. It has 6 analog inputs, a USB connection, a
power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button. It has 16 MHz
of clock speed. It can simply be connected to a computer with a
USB cable or with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started.
The main functioning component of this board is the
Page 85

ISSN:2277-1581
01 Jan.2016
ATmega328 microcontroller. The ATmega328 microcontroller

has 2KB of SRAM, 1KB of EPROM and 32KB of flash
memory [2], [3].
Power connection to Arduino-UNO:
The Arduino Uno can be powered via the USB connection or
with an external power supply. Leads from a battery can be
inserted in the Ground and Vin pin headers of the POWER
connector. The board can operate on an external supply of 6 to
20V. If supplied with less than 7V, however the 5V pin may
supply less than five volts and the board may be unstable. If
using more than 12V, the voltage regulator may overheat and
damage the board. The recommended range is 7 to 12 volts [1].
Pin mode definition:
There are 14 digital pins on the board. Each of the pin can be
used as input or output using pinMode(), digitalWrite() [5], and
digitalRead() [7] functions. They operate at 5 volts. Each pin
can provide or receive a maximum of 40 mA and has an internal
pull-up resistor (disconnected by default) of 20-50 k. Using 0 Fig. 3: Connection diagram of a digital tachometer.
(RX) and 1 (TX) pins serial TTL data can be received (RX) and
transmitted (TX). External interrupt pins are pin 2 and 3. These V. Flow chart of a Digital Tachometer
pins can be used to trigger an interrupt on a low value, a rising
or falling edge, or a change in value using the attachInterrupt()
[6] function. The pin number 3, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 11 provide 8-bit
PWM output with the analogWrite() [4] function. The 6 analog
input pins A0 through A5 provide 10 bits resolution that means
1024 different values.
III. RPM Co u nt ing
For the purpose of RPM counting we use the property of
phototransistor that when IR light falls on the phototransistor its
output becomes high and low when interruption occurs. The
microprocessor counts the number of interrupts and time in
millisecond. Ultimately we can measure the number of
revolution per unit time by using this formulae -NR = (number of interrupts/time in milliseconds)..(i)
Where NR = number of revolution.
We can count RPM by converting the time interval in equation
(i) in minute as the following
RPM = (number of interrupts/time in milliseconds)
20000.(ii)
IV. Circuit Description and Connection diagram
For sensing the RPM we use the special alignment of IR LED
and IR phototransistor. The IR LED and IR phototransistor are
aligned in such a way that light from the LED falls on the
transistor. This combination of IR LED and IR phototransistor
forms the sensor part of this project. To get output from the
transistor the base of the transistor is left free. The emitter of the
transistor is grounded through a 22 K resistor. The output
voltage across the resistor is taken as input to Arduino-UNO
through interruption pin 3. We have also controlled a dc motor
using pulse width modulation and this is performed using PWM
output pin 9. For controlling the motor the analog input is
controlled by using the A1 pin. For showing the RPM and the
duty cycle of PWM we have interfaced a 162 LCD display.
For LCD interfacing [8] we have used the digital pin 2, 4, 5,
6,11 and 12 using the function LiquidCrystal lcd(12,11,6,5,4,2).
doi : 10.17950/ijset/v5s1/118
Fig. 4: Flow chart of a digital tachometer

VI. Circuit Operation
An IR photo transistor and IR LED forms the sensor .The use
of IR phototransistor avoids other light interferences from the
environment. The photo transistor and IR diode are aligned side
by side. The object of which the speed to be measured is placed
between the IR LED and IR photo transistor. Here we use a 9V
dc motor for measuring the speed. The phototransistor conducts
only when the light falls on it. At the time of rotating the blade
of the motor interrupts the light passing from IR LED to IR
phototransistor and this interruption is sensed by Arduino.
Page 86

ISSN:2277-1581
01 Jan.2016
Using the interrupt service routine the number of interrupt is

counted. The mills function measures the time for each
interruption. Then by using the following formulae the RPM of
the motor can be measured.
RPM = (number of interrupts/time in milliseconds) 20000.
VII. Comparison between existing tachometer in our lab
and our implemented one
A tachometer is available in our machine laboratory but
problem is that this one does not measure the exact RPM. That
is why we intend to design a digital tachometer with less error.
Table 1: Comparison between two tachometers
RPM measured RPM measured with
with
existing implemented
tachometer
tachometer
13%
490
513
34%
1550
1599
92%
2795
2820
100%
2930
2968
The motor we used is rated 3000 rpm. So the percentage error
of our implemented tachometer is 1.07% and the percentage
error of the existing tachometer is 2.33%.
Duty
Cycle
Fig. 7: Implemented figure of a digital tachometer (Speed =

513 RPM, PWM=13%)
IX. Application
Tachometer is an essential instrument in this modern era of
industrialization. In industry it is necessary to control the speed
of motor at a definite RPM and for this counting of RPM is
essential. Tachometer performs this task of counting. Using the
theory behind tachometer we can develop other device such as
visitor counter, object counter.
VIII. Some snaps of the implemented project

X. Conclusion
In this modern era of industrialization motor and generator
become part and parcel in industry. For specific application in
industry the speed is needed to be fixed and for this reason it is
necessary to know the speed in RPM (revolution per minute).
Tachometer is such a device to count the RPM (revolution per
minute). In our project (Digital Tachometer) we have tried our
best to implement digital tachometer in such a way that the
count should be accurate.
References
i. http://www.arduino.cc.( Access time 29/01/2015 . 9:06
PM).
ii. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino
iii. Arduino cookbook.
iv. arduino-1.0.5-r2/reference/AnalogWrite.html
v. arduino-1.0.5-r2/reference/DigitalWrite.html
2820 RPM, PWM=92%)
vi. arduino-1.0.5-r2/reference/AttachInterrupt.html
vii. arduino-1.0.5-r2/reference/DigitalRead.html
viii. ] INTERFACING LCD TO ARDUINO. JHD162A IS
THE
16X2 LCD
MODULE USED HERE. IT RUNS
ON THE HITACHI 44780 DRIVER.HTM

1599 RPM, PWM=34%)
doi : 10.17950/ijset/v5s1/118
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International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology

Volume No.5 Issue No.1, pp: 85-87

Design and Implementation of a Digital Tachometer

Fig. 1: Block diagram of a digital tachometer.

International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology

ATmega328 microcontroller. The ATmega328 microcontroller

Fig. 4: Flow chart of a digital tachometer

International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology

Using the interrupt service routine the number of interrupt is

Fig. 7: Implemented figure of a digital tachometer (Speed =

VIII. Some snaps of the implemented project

Fig. 6: Implemented figure of a digital tachometer (Speed =

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