The distinction between tachometers and encoders has blurred. Most industrial vendors and customers use: tach, tachometer, digital tachometer, encoder, and incremental encoder interchangeably. Some may use the term encoders to refer to a heavier duty encoder; Avtron uses the terms encoder and tachometer interchangeably.
The original distinction between tachometers and encoders was that tachometers were used for velocity indication and control only, and could not provide position information.
Only the (older) DC/analog tachogenerator style of tachometer had this limitation; all modern tachometers have quadrature outputs which are used for velocity, position, and direction measurements, making them effectively encoders.
Also offers digital to analog converters to provide analog output from modern digital encoders. This enables customers who have older analog drives to connect Avtron digital encoders to their drives. Replacing analog tachogenerators eliminates the maintenance associated with brushes and bearing wear. For more details, see Special Encoder Applications.