Detecting a pulse

[Dennis]

It seems a sentence was left out of my posting!

I wish to log the power failure durations, times and dates as well and that's why I would like to use a PIC as well an an RTC.
The PIC cirucit would either form part of an existing circuit or be battery/solar powered and have little or no draw on my home circuit.

Kind regards
Dennis

Hi all

Because of the amount of power failures in our area , I am building a circuit to auto-switch my generator because it's quite a mission getting up at 2am sometimes to go and switch it on when there is a power failure.

I plan to use an opto-isolator initially to detect the power failure however some form of zero-crossing detection may also be a consideration.

This of course raises a good few (maybe silly for some) questions:
1.Which would most accurately detect the pulses ? PULSIN or COUNT? are there other methods?
2.Using either of these does the incoming pulse have to be a known value or can on just check to see if a pulse (of any/unknown size) exists ?
3.Have I chosen the correct RTC (DS1302) for the job ?

I have been searching the forum for the last few days but haven't yet found the right example.

I really would appreciate some advice or guidance on how to detect the pulse and absence of a pulse just to get me started.


Kind regards

Dennis