Has anyone ever seen one of these?

[jrexrode]

I'm looking for a device that I'm not sure is or ever has been mass produced. If anyone knows of such a thing, or anything like it, would you let me know.

Ideally, it is a device that you can set an address on using 2 BCD switches. This address would then be sent out as a pulse stream. So, let's say the address is 25, then maybe there would be two pulses follwed by a pause, then followed by five pulses followed by a longer pause than the first, then the sequence starts over.

The purpose for this I have in mind is for tooling identification, so that instead of using multiple inputs for identification, I can use a single input. I've searched and can find circuits where the pulse rate is based off resistance value, but I haven't find one based off BCD switches, which I would think would be more involved than potentiometers. I'm hoping there is an off the shelf solution.

 

[ndzied1]

I have never seen anything like that but I'm sure you could make one from one of these...

http://www.arduino.cc/

Picked up one to play around with and my 11 year old is going to town with it.

 

[JesperMP]

Not what you are after, but I would consider either an RFID tag reader, or a barcode reader.

 

[Badger]

You could do it with either TDM or FDM not sure which would best suit your application, but for TDM you could use an acurate timer device/relay that for say tool 1 gives out a 10ms pulse tool 2 = 20ms tool 3 = 30ms pulse and so on. (I have already done this when outputs were at a premium). The plc can handle the logic and decide which tool is present. This way you can get quite a few variations in a short time period. FDM I am not sure if there is a device that could do this at your budget but I'm sure there are folks that frequent this site that will tell you. Regards Badger