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Line driver suggests a differential signal, which is not a natural fit, but usually you can just use the positive signal in a single-ended fashion, again as long as it fits the logic thresholds of the U6.
One other consideration is speed. If you are using a hardware counter then speed will not be an issue. If you are using a timer to do period measurement or quadrature decoding, however, you do need to consider the max speed of your device and the pulses/rev of your encoder:
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If the encoder needs power, one that runs off 5 volts is most convenient.
Open collector is great if it is NPN. PNP is not bad but you need to add pull-down resistors.
https://labjack.com/support/app-notes/open-collector-signals
Push-pull is excellent as long as it fits in the logic thresholds of the U6. A low is <0.8 and a high is >2.0:
https://labjack.com/support/datasheets/u6/appendix-a
Line driver suggests a differential signal, which is not a natural fit, but usually you can just use the positive signal in a single-ended fashion, again as long as it fits the logic thresholds of the U6.
One other consideration is speed. If you are using a hardware counter then speed will not be an issue. If you are using a timer to do period measurement or quadrature decoding, however, you do need to consider the max speed of your device and the pulses/rev of your encoder:
https://labjack.com/support/datasheets/u6/hardware-description/timers-counters/operation-notes