[billbo911]

Originally Posted by RyanN

We will try it when we get to the Bayou Regional, but 2 days before shipping, we measured it with a feeler, and it was pretty much right on what it called for, and one of our engineers doesn't want to get it "too close."

I absolutely understand your engineers concerned about getting it too close. We too tried to have the encoder positioned exactly according to the spec. sheet. The result was we were having intermittent tooth counts. So I pulled out my old, ancient, barely working oscilloscope. When I looked at the signal I can see that he was not a consistent waveform. I've been unmounted the sensor from the transmission and manually positioned it by hand while the motor was running at about 50%. I move I moved the sensor in until it made contact with the gear. At that point I immediately backed it out to prevent damage, then at least I had a reference as to how far we could put it in. I've been carefully moved the sensor in and out and suddenly I got a perfect square wave, with the duty cycle of 50%. I was able to determine exactly how much shim was needed to reproduce that position. I then repositioned the encoder, solidly mounting it to the transmission with the correct amount of shim in place. I was then able to run the motor at full speed forward and full speed reverse without missing a single count.

For us, trial and error turned out to be the best way to go. If you have access to an oscilloscope, use it to determine the correct position to get a consistent results.