Tachometer

A tachometer (revolution-counter, tach, rev-

counter, RPM gauge) is an instrument measuring the
rotation speed of a shaft or disk, as in a motor or other
machine.[1] The device usually displays the
revolutions per minute (RPM) on a calibrated
analogue dial, but digital displays are increasingly
common.

The word comes from Ancient Greek τάχος

(táchos) 'speed' and μέτρον (métron) 'measure'.
Essentially the words tachometer and speedometer A tachometer that can indicate up to 7000 RPM
have identical meaning: a device that measures speed. (left)
It is by arbitrary convention that in the automotive
world one is used for engine revolutions and the other
for vehicle speed. In formal engineering nomenclature, more precise terms are used to distinguish the
two.

History
The first tachometer was described by Bryan Donkin in a paper to the Royal Society of Arts in 1810 for
which he was awarded the Gold medal of the society. This consisted of a bowl of mercury constructed in
such a way that centrifugal force caused the level in a central tube to fall when it rotated and brought
down the level in a narrower tube above filled with coloured spirit. The bowl was connected to the
machinery to be measured by pulleys.[2]

The first mechanical tachometers were based on measuring the centrifugal force, similar to the operation
of a centrifugal governor. The inventor is assumed to be the German engineer Dietrich Uhlhorn; he used
it for measuring the speed of machines in 1817.[3] Since 1840, it has been used to measure the speed of
locomotives.

In automobiles, trucks, tractors and aircraft

Tachometers or revolution counters on cars, aircraft, and other vehicles show the rate of rotation of the
engine's crankshaft, and typically have markings indicating a safe range of rotation speeds. This can assist
the driver in selecting appropriate throttle and gear settings for the driving conditions. Prolonged use at
high speeds may cause inadequate lubrication, overheating (exceeding capability of the cooling system),
exceeding speed capability of sub-parts of the engine (for example spring retracted valves) thus causing
excessive wear or permanent damage or failure of engines. On analogue tachometers, speeds above
maximum safe operating speed are typically indicated by an area of the gauge marked in red, giving rise
to the expression of "redlining" an engine — revving the engine up to the maximum safe limit. Most
modern cars typically have a revolution limiter which electronically limits engine
speed to prevent damage. Diesel engines with traditional mechanical injector systems
have an integral governor which prevents over-speeding the engine, so the
tachometers in vehicles and machinery fitted with such engines sometimes lack a
redline.

In vehicles such as tractors and trucks, the tachometer often has other markings,
usually a green arc showing the speed range in which the engine produces maximum
torque, which is of prime interest to operators of such vehicles. Tractors fitted with a
power take-off (PTO) system have tachometers showing the engine speed needed to
rotate the PTO at the standardized speed required by most PTO-driven implements.
In many countries, tractors are required to have a speedometer for use on a road. To
save fitting a second dial, the vehicle's tachometer is often marked with a second
scale in units of speed. This scale is only accurate in a certain gear, but since many
tractors only have one gear that is practical for use on-road, this is sufficient. Tractors
with multiple 'road gears' often have tachometers with more than one speed scale.
Aircraft tachometers have a green arc showing the engine's designed cruising speed
range.

In older vehicles, the tachometer is driven by the RMS voltage waves from the low Cessna 172's
tension (LT contact breaker) side of the ignition coil,[4] while on others (and nearly G1000
all diesel engines, which have no ignition system) engine speed is determined by the tachometer
(1,060 RPM)
frequency from the alternator tachometer output. This is from a special connection
and engine
called an "AC tap" which is a connection to one of the stator's coil output, before the hours (1736.7
rectifier. Tachometers driven by a rotating cable from a drive unit fitted to the engine hours)
(usually on the camshaft) exist - usually on simple diesel-engined machinery with
basic or no electrical systems. On recent EMS found on modern vehicles, the signal
for the tachometer is usually generated from an ECU which derives the information from either the
crankshaft or camshaft speed sensor.

Traffic engineering
Tachometers are used to estimate traffic speed and volume (flow).
A vehicle is equipped with the sensor and conducts "tach runs"
which record the traffic data. These data are a substitute or
complement to loop detector data. To get statistically significant
results requires a high number of runs, and bias is introduced by
the time of day, day of week, and the season. However, because of
the expense, spacing (a lower density of loop detectors diminishes A tachometer on a tractor, reading
data accuracy), and relatively low reliability of loop detectors up to 3000 RPM, with the hour
(often 30% or more are out of service at any given time), tach runs meter below it showing 772.9 hours.
remain a common practice. The mark at 2500 RPM is the
engine speed required to run the
power take-off at 540 RPM.

In trains and light rail vehicles

Speed sensing devices, termed variously "wheel impulse generators" (WIG), pulse generators, speed
probes, or tachometers are used extensively in rail vehicles. Common types include opto-isolator slotted
disk sensors[5] and Hall effect sensors.

Hall effect sensors typically use a rotating target attached to a wheel, gearbox or motor. This target may
contain magnets, or it may be a toothed wheel. The teeth on the wheel vary the flux density of a magnet
inside the sensor head. The probe is mounted with its head a precise distance from the target wheel and
detects the teeth or magnets passing its face. One problem with this system is that the necessary air gap
between the target wheel and the sensor allows ferrous dust from the vehicle's underframe to build up on
the probe or target, inhibiting its function.

Opto-isolator sensors are completely encased to prevent ingress from the outside environment. The only
exposed parts are a sealed plug connector and a drive fork, which is attached to a slotted disk internally
through a bearing and seal. The slotted disk is typically sandwiched between two circuit boards
containing a photo-diode, photo-transistor, amplifier, and filtering circuits which produce a square wave
pulse train output customized to the customer's voltage and pulses per revolution requirements. These
types of sensors typically provide 2 to 8 independent channels of output that can be sampled by other
systems in the vehicle such as automatic train control systems and propulsion/braking controllers.

The sensors mounted around the circumference of the disk provide quadrature encoded outputs and thus
allow the vehicle's computer to determine the direction of rotation of the wheel. This is a legal
requirement in Switzerland to prevent rollback when starting from standstill. Strictly, such devices are not
tachometers since they do not provide a direct reading of the rotational speed of the disk. The speed has
to be derived externally by counting the number of pulses in a time period. It is difficult to prove
conclusively that the vehicle is stationary, other than by waiting a certain time to ensure that no further
pulses occur. This is one reason why there is often a time delay between the train stopping, as perceived
by a passenger, and the doors being released. Slotted-disk devices are typical sensors used in odometer
systems for rail vehicles, such as are required for train protection systems — notably the European Train
Control System.

As well as speed sensing, these probes are often used to calculate distance travelled by multiplying wheel
rotations by wheel circumference.

They can be used to automatically calibrate wheel diameter by comparing the number of rotations of each
axle against a master wheel that has been measured manually. Since all wheels travel the same distance,
the diameter of each wheel is proportional to its number of rotations compared to the master wheel. This
calibration must be done while coasting at a fixed speed to eliminate the possibility of wheel slip/slide
introducing errors into the calculation. Automatic calibration of this type is used to generate more
accurate traction and braking signals, and to improve wheel slip detection.

A weakness of systems that rely on wheel rotation for tachometry and odometry is that the train wheels
and the rails are very smooth and the friction between them is low, leading to high error rates if the
wheels slip or slide. To compensate for this, secondary odometry inputs employ Doppler radar units
beneath the train to measure speed independently.

In analogue audio recording

In analogue audio recording, a tachometer is a device that measures the speed of audiotape as it passes
across the head. On most audio tape recorders the tachometer (or simply "tach") is a relatively large
spindle near the ERP head stack, isolated from the feed and take-up spindles by tension idlers.

On many recorders the tachometer spindle is connected by an axle to a rotating magnet that induces a
changing magnetic field upon a Hall effect transistor. Other systems connect the spindle to a stroboscope,
which alternates light and dark upon a photodiode.

The tape recorder's drive electronics use signals from the tachometer to ensure that the tape is played at
the proper speed. The signal is compared to a reference signal (either a quartz crystal or alternating
current from the mains). The comparison of the two frequencies drives the speed of the tape transport.
When the tach signal and the reference signal match, the tape transport is said to be "at speed." (To this
day on film sets, the director calls "Roll sound!" and the sound man replies "Sound speed!" This is a
vestige of the days when recording devices required several seconds to reach a regulated speed.)

Having perfectly regulated tape speed is important because the human ear is very sensitive to changes in
pitch, particularly sudden ones, and without a self-regulating system to control the speed of tape across
the head, the pitch could drift several percent. This effect is called a wow-and-flutter, and a modern,
tachometer-regulated cassette deck has a wow-and-flutter of 0.07%.

Tachometers are acceptable for high-fidelity sound playback, but not for recording in synchronization
with a movie camera. For such purposes, special recorders that record pilottone must be used.

Tachometer signals can be used to synchronize several tape machines together, but only if in addition to
the tach signal, a directional signal is transmitted, to tell slave machines in which direction the master is
moving.

See also
List of auto parts
List of vehicle instruments
Redline
Tachograph

References
1. Erjavec, Jack (2005). Automotive Technology. ISBN 1-4018-4831-1.
2. Donkin, Bryan (April 1810). "An instrument to ascertain the velocities of machine, called a
Tachometer" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/41325817). Transactions of the Society, Instituted
at London, for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. 28: 185–191.
JSTOR 41325817 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/41325817). Retrieved 23 August 2021.
3. Theoretische und praktische Abhandlung über einen neuerfundenen Tachometer oder
Geschwindigkeitsmesser : zunächst für Mechaniker, Fabrikanten, Baumeister und Andere (h
ttp://digital.ub.uni-duesseldorf.de/urn/urn:nbn:de:hbz:061:1-492968)
4. "Tachometer - Facts from the Encyclopedia - Yahoo! Education" (https://web.archive.org/we
b/20121106222358/http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/tachomet).
 Education.yahoo.com. Archived from the original (http://education.yahoo.com/reference/enc
yclopedia/entry/tachomet) on 2012-11-06. Retrieved 2012-06-05.
5. "HaslerRail Speed Sensors" (http://www.haslerrail.com/index.php?id=50). Haslerrail.com.
Retrieved 2011-06-02.

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