The feedback device port of Argon has “only” 15 pins, just like earlier drive model VSD-E, but tons of more of more capabilities have been squished into it. It has:
- 5V 500 mA output
- 5 differential input lines where 3 of them are bidirectional
- 3 single-ended digital inputs
- 2 differential 1 Vpp analog inputs
- Differential inputs may be used with single ended signals as well
All this makes it possible to support many kinds of feedback devices such as:
- Quadrature encoder with index channel
- SinCos encoder with interpolation factor up to 1000x
- Tachometer
- Resolver (a.k.a. synchro)
- Hall sensors
- Serial encoderes (SSI, BISS etc). Support for example for Austria microsystems low cost magnetic linear & rotary encoders possible.
VSD-E could support only the first of them so I think the progress is quite significant.