I'm asking this question in this way because I don't know any other way to explain what I'm trying to do.
Imagine you have 2 gears, gear A and gear B, gear B is 3 times larger then gear A. So, if gear A rotates one full turn, gear B rotates 1/3 of a turn. gear A is the input and gear B is the output. gear B is divided into 3 parts, 1/3, 2/3, 3/3. the 1/3 part is labels -1, the 2/3 is labeled 0 and the 3/3 part is labeled +1, so in essence I have a gear (B) labeled -1, 0, +1. if we start at -1 and rotate gear A, 3 times, gear B will rotate one full turn from -1 to 0 to +1 then back to -1. So forwards or backwards the sequence is the same.
-1, 0, +1, -1, 0, +1, -1, 0, +1, -1, 0, +1, -1, 0, +1, -1, 0, +1,
the question is, this sequence can be made in gears but can it be made in an electronic version, lets says we used 3 volts, 6 volts and 9 volts. 3 volt is -1, 6 volts is 0 and 9 volts is +1 with only one input and one output. how could we build it so that it starts with a input of 6 volts, 0. if we add 3 volts to the 6 volts, the output would be 9 volts, if we decrease the input now by 3 volts the output would be 6 volts again, decrease the input by another 3 volts and the output is now 3 volts. (I know what your thinking at this point, the outputs are just the inputs - like a straight wire!?)
but here is the kicker, if the output is at 9 volts and we input another +3 volts the output is NOT 12 volts but instead rolls over back to 3 volts, add another +3 volts and the output steps up to 6 volts, just like the gears rolling over from -1, 0, +1. So the sequence would be +3 volts for each step and you would get an output of 3, 6, 9, 3, 6, 9, 3, 6, 9. decrease by -3 volts and you get the reverse, 9, 6, 3, 9, 6, 3, 9, 6, 3
I can across something called a voltage-controlled oscillator, Johnson counter and a ring circuit. but what I'm finding is that these use some kind of pulse generator or something and I'm looking for to just use straight DC voltage only, no pulses or wave forms or the likes. I got this far asking ChatGPT but it's still kind of stupid and although it somewhat understands what I'm looking for it doesn't seen to fully understand.
The purpose of this is it's an idea for a Ternary switch, everything online about ternary seems to fall into two camps, theory about a three state switch and making a three state switch from binary circuits. the issue I see is that most are trying to get the full 3 states, -1 0 +1. and they pass through the 0 to get from -1 or +1, I figure instead of going through 0 we just roll over from +1 to -1 like a gear. I've been working on the balanced ternary number system and this works out perfect. just roll over instead of trying to go back through zero
example:
- (+ = +1)
- (0 = 0)
- (- = -1)
So here is the first 9 digits
(0 0 0 - = -1)
(0 0 0 0 = 0)
(0 0 0 + = 1)
(0 0 + - = 2)
(0 0 + 0 = 3)
(0 0 + + = 4)
(0 + - - = 5)
(0 + - 0 = 6)
(0 + - - = 7)
(0 + 0 - = 8)
(0 + 0 0 = 9)
If you look you'll see in the 1s place down the list it goes, from -1 to 0 to +1, -1, 0, +1, -1, 0, +1. in the 3s place its every 3rd that repeats the sequence, in the 9s place it's every 9 that repeats the sequence in the 27s place it's every 27 and on and on.
