Patent ID: 6850664

Claim:
A system, comprising: a rotating shaft having shaft movement parameters; an incremental shaft encoder coupled to the rotating shaft to convert the shaft movement parameters of the rotating shaft into differentially encoded electrical signals suitable for processing; an electrical-to-optical (E/O) converter coupled to the incremental shaft encoder to convert the differentially encoded electrical signals into optical signals; a plurality of optical conductors to carry the optical signals; and an optical-to-electrical (O/E) converter to receive the optical signals from the optical conductors and convert the optical signals back into electrical signals, wherein the E/O converter includes: a differential-to-single converter to convert the differential encoded electrical signals to single-ended electrical signals; and a transient over-voltage protection circuit coupled to the differential-to-single converter, wherein the transient over-voltage protection circuit provides over voltage protection of the differentially encoded electrical signals for the differential-to-single converter.