Encoder Resolution

A rotary encoder turns angular motion into a fixed number of digital counts for each full 360° turn. If one revolution is divided into N equal count steps, then each count represents 360/N degrees, which is the smallest angle the encoder can distinguish in an idealized sense. So this formula tells you the angular step size per count.

Use this when you need to estimate how precisely an encoder can measure position or motion, such as in motor shaft feedback, robot joints, or turntables. It helps you convert encoder counts into degrees and judge whether the encoder is fine enough for the task.

• Using the number of pulses from the output channel without checking whether quadrature decoding changes the effective count
• Forgetting that N must be counts per full revolution, not counts per second or per degree
• Mixing up resolution with accuracy; a small step size does not guarantee the encoder is perfectly accurate