{"id":1472,"date":"2026-03-06T10:58:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T09:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/encoder-pedia\/cose-il-disco-di-un-encoder\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T11:40:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T09:40:37","slug":"what-is-the-encoder-code-wheel","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/en\/encoder-pedia\/what-is-the-encoder-code-wheel\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the encoder code wheel?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The encoder\u00a0<strong>code wheel<\/strong>\u00a0(or disc) defines the transmission code of pulses; it is formed by a support made of plastic, glass or metallic material, on which is engraved a pattern of alternated clear (transparent) and opaque segments.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0<a title=\"Incremental encoder\" href=\"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/en\/encoder-pedia\/what-is-an-incremental-encoder\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>incremental encoders<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0transparent segments alternate with opaque ones along a single circular ring on the disc; the number of these segments determines the number of pulses and, therefore, also the resolution of the device. Since there is no absolute position in the incremental measure system, it\u2019s often used an additional segment called \u201c<strong>zero pulse<\/strong>\u201d as a univocal reference to determine the starting position.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_414\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-414\" style=\"width: 388px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-414 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Disco-Encoder-Incrementale.jpg\" alt=\"Disco incrementale\" width=\"388\" height=\"335\" srcset=\"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Disco-Encoder-Incrementale.jpg 388w, https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Disco-Encoder-Incrementale-300x259.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 388px) 100vw, 388px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-414\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Incremental code wheel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In\u00a0<a title=\"Absolute encoder\" href=\"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/en\/encoder-pedia\/what-is-an-absolute-encoder\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>absolute encoders<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0transparent segments alternate with opaque ones along several circular rings, according to a pattern that provides the position in a\u00a0<strong>binary code<\/strong>\u00a0configuration. To avoid encoding errors, a variant of the natural binary code is employed, the\u00a0<strong>Gray code<\/strong>, which has the distinctive characteristic to vary only one binary digit between a code and the following one, ensuring a higher reliability both in code generation and decoding.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_412\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-412\" style=\"width: 87px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-412 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Gray.png\" alt=\"Disco Gray a 2 bit\" width=\"87\" height=\"87\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-412\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2 bit disc with binary code<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_413\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-413\" style=\"width: 87px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-413\" src=\"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/disco-binario.png\" alt=\"Disco binario a 2 bit\" width=\"87\" height=\"87\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-413\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2 bit disc with Gray code<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The encoder\u00a0code wheel\u00a0(or disc) defines the transmission code of pulses; it is formed by a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":721,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1472","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1472"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1628,"href":"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1472\/revisions\/1628"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltra.bfenterprise.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}