Hi there,
Reed switches arent a bad idea really, Pretty simple to set up and use. You'd have to evaluate the life of them to see how long they would last in a constant open/close applicatoin.
Someone else had a project similar to this one in the past and here was my suggestion:
Use one micro controller per channel, each one a 'slave'.
Use one more micro controller as the master.
Each slave uC reads the analog input, converts it to digital, and outputs the digital code through a cheap digital opto isolator to the master.
The master reads each channel in turn.
This works as long as you have time to read all of the channels.
Because you have so many channels, you may have to divide them into groups and sub groups. For example, 10 first level uC's send their data to a different master, and those five masters send their data to a the one super master. The super master can either process it or send it to a host terminal.
It's up to you to come up with the timing protocol for each slave and master and the one super master.
Reed switches arent a bad idea really, Pretty simple to set up and use. You'd have to evaluate the life of them to see how long they would last in a constant open/close applicatoin.
Someone else had a project similar to this one in the past and here was my suggestion:
Use one micro controller per channel, each one a 'slave'.
Use one more micro controller as the master.
Each slave uC reads the analog input, converts it to digital, and outputs the digital code through a cheap digital opto isolator to the master.
The master reads each channel in turn.
This works as long as you have time to read all of the channels.
Because you have so many channels, you may have to divide them into groups and sub groups. For example, 10 first level uC's send their data to a different master, and those five masters send their data to a the one super master. The super master can either process it or send it to a host terminal.
It's up to you to come up with the timing protocol for each slave and master and the one super master.
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