Encoders and Rotary Switches

[ozziesim]

Hi All,

I have spent all day searching and looking at all sorts of encoders and rotary switches and to my demise i cant find what i want locally here in Australia.

Unlike all the other countries in the world who know that they need to stock certain products in the country for hungry sim builders, the Aussies, well they say buy them from the rest of the world because we dont want to stock flight sim stuff. I just cant figure it out.

So !!, this is where i have turned to for some idea sharing.

If there is anybody, especially Aussies that want to play name the Encoder or Switch please feel free.

If you have built a home sim, would you mind sharing where you got your encoders from and what sort are they, whats the specs if you know them. As you may be aware most sims work best on "quarter wave" ecoders so if thats what you use i wouldnt mind knowing the brand and type that it is.

Also i cant seem to find 45 degree index rotary switches over here so any mention on these would be great also.

Any info would be great so i can try and source and supply them to sim builders in AU

Thankyou

Clint

www.ozziesim.com.au (http://www.ozziesim.com.au)

[Kennair]

Clint,

Most, if not all, interfaces seem to use the gray code 1/4 cycle encoder of the CTS288 type. This has been a source of much frustration as you can get them anywhere BUT Australia. I would have thought Radio Spares would have sold such a thing, but sadly no! Online there are many suppliers at various prices then of course you have to add shipping. Two I know of are Opencockpits who sell them for 3 euro and Flight Deck Solutions for $9USD. Now, if you want a real challange, try finding dual concentric rotary encoder!

A 45 degree rotary switch is also elusive, however you can make one by adapting a 12 position switch which is readily available.

Ken.

[Mike.Powell]

Clint,

For my last electronic project I used rotary encoders I purchased through Ebay. I believe the same person is still selling them. (For example: item number 330165495219) These are moderate quality, consumer grade items rather than aerospace. Can't say I've beat on them enough to have a feel for how long they might last, but so far no complaints.

When I bought mine, the Ebay listing had a link to further documentation. That seems to be missing from this listing. I can't tell how the detents align with the switch action, or if there even are detents.

On the other hand, the price is low and they will ship to Australia.

[ozziesim]

Clint,

Most, if not all, interfaces seem to use the gray code 1/4 cycle encoder of the CTS288 type. This has been a source of much frustration as you can get them anywhere BUT Australia. I would have thought Radio Spares would have sold such a thing, but sadly no! Online there are many suppliers at various prices then of course you have to add shipping. Two I know of are Opencockpits who sell them for 3 euro and Flight Deck Solutions for $9USD. Now, if you want a real challange, try finding dual concentric rotary encoder!

A 45 degree rotary switch is also elusive, however you can make one by adapting a 12 position switch which is readily available.

Ken.

Thanks for your comments Ken, but i refuse to believe that no one in AU can supply us ? Is it possible that the rest of the world can have them but we cant ? Probrably -- I will continue searching today !!

[brianwilliamson]

Gooday Clint............http://www.altronics.com.au/index.asp?area=item&id=S3350

Not sure of the quality but they are availible. I get mine from IO Cards, which are good quality and cheap. The 45 degree switches as far as I know can be supplied from Peter Cos.
http://www.flightdecksolutions.com/list_products.php?id=40&page=3

That is where I had to get mine. Concentric rotary encoders...........you need to build them, which is not all that hard.
Hope this helps.....................Brian W.

[Kennair]

BTW, I bought a pack of 10 push button gray code rotary encoders off ebay (based in Perth would you believe) as Mike mentioned, as they only cost $18AUD. But sadly they didn't work with my IOCards. Obviously not the required parameters. I did find the spec sheet for them which indicated the they were 24 pulse/24 detent. This was really unfortunate as they are readily available on ebay and cost very little, even came with nice grey knobs. They are from China I believe. I also tried the Altronics variety to no avail. I ended up making my own using the old hacked 12 position switch method, which works great but consumes an extra card input for each one. Replacing them with real encoders would release 13 inputs.

FWIW, I did manage to find a supplier of dual concentric rotary encoders of the CTS288 variety from Brazil at about $28AUD each. http://www.hesimpanels.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=42&osCsid=df9ea602da4b1bc49d1d3c565b51c571

Ken.

[ozziesim]

Ok, i have my distributors looking all over for me for a solution.

This is what i am proposing

Rotary encoder would be the CTS like the CT2999-ND availble from digikey. ( Used and Tested by Gwyn in his 737NG.)

Dual Concentric rotary encoder????? still waiting for some ideas, distributor is trying to find a solution.

Rotary Encoder with Push Button?? Still waiting for a soulution and specs if anyone has tried them distributor looking for a solution.

7 segment display amber/ yellow 8mm Cathode - Need some specs if anyone has tested some models.

Rotary switch 8 positions 45 degree indexing- still waiting for a solution and distributor is looking into it. If anyone has tested and has any specs on a particular model ??

any comments?

clint

[Kennair]

Clint,

Most of the cockpit encoders being sold are push button I think you'll find. FDS sell with and without. The digikey ones Gwyn uses are push button also. They are the most popular and not much more expensive.

Ken.

[Westozy]

Clint,

Most of the cockpit encoders being sold are push button I think you'll find. FDS sell with and without. The digikey ones Gwyn uses are push button also. They are the most popular and not much more expensive.

Ken.

I can confirm - the Digikey CT-2999ND does have a push button, I use the push button to toggle the radio panel window on the main view.

Found these too - http://www.cockpitsonic.com/oxid.php/sid/x/cl/details/anid/c1043859a02ec2287.30377362 AUD$10.50ea.

Gwyn

[brianwilliamson]

Here is some help if you need to build a concentric encoder.
Brian W.

[Kennair]

Ah nice one Brian,

Do you use a non-pushbutton version to drill through? And you must have to be very precise with your drilling as these have quite narrow shafts? Any chance of a tutorial?

EDIT: Oh I see, I should have looked more closely. You are using two encoders side by side with a gearing arrangement. Interesting idea. I have seen somewhere someone using the drill through method with one connected behind the other but at $10 each, you may as well buy the prefab ones from the Brazil sim dealer I linked to above.

Ken.

[AndyT]

Brian,

Good design for those but it does not leave much room for mounting.

Kennair,

$10 ?? I just looked at the site and they are $18. and change USD. If you know something I dont, please share...

[Kennair]

Opencockpits sell them for 3 euros each which is about $9AUD, making it $18 for two (not taking into account shipping). The genuine dual concentric encoders from Brazil are around $28AUD (so less for USD) and don't require any jiggery-pokery to manufacture. And yes they don't consume the space that Brian's would.

Ken.

[Tomlin]

Well, for what it's worth to the OP, GoFlight sells a dual concentric rotary encoder that works with their boards in the RMK version (remote mount kit) and basically you buy it and the main board and use as you care to (as long as your assignment is available).

This is what Im using for my Honeywell Primus 1000 RMUs in the Learjet. You can see it here: http://www.goflightinc.com/order/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=57

However, I dont think it's available in Oz except via shipping from the US.

[marius]

What kind of rotary encoders does flightdeck technology use? I saw one on their tutorial. Does anyone have the code? They are 2-bit quarter wave, aren't they?

[Kennair]

Eric,

I'd forgotten about good-ol Go Flight. Do their encoders work with other boards or are they specific to the Go Flight interface?

Didn't see any encoders on the FDT site, only their sim boards. Flight Deck Solutions has them, and yes they are the gray code 1/4 cycle.

Ken

[ozziesim]

Hey guys check this link out, this is a new company opening up in Sydney,

Does anyone know if the specs are ok for flight sim use ?

http://au.newark.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?sku=95F7247


Clint

[Tomlin]

Eric,

I'd forgotten about good-ol Go Flight. Do their encoders work with other boards or are they specific to the Go Flight interface?

Didn't see any encoders on the FDT site, only their sim boards. Flight Deck Solutions has them, and yes they are the gray code 1/4 cycle.

Ken

Ken, as far as I know, the GF rotaries are standard encoders but the PCB they are mounted to allow them to work soley with their boards. When you consider how simple it is to use their products (now that I have figured out the legends were opposite on the RP48 board) it's a great value in the RMK form.

[ozziesim]

What kind of rotary encoders does flightdeck technology use? I saw one on their tutorial. Does anyone have the code? They are 2-bit quarter wave, aren't they?


Gwyn uses the flight deck technology card and he used the CT2999-ND from digikey (manufactured by CTS) which comes under the catergory i think that ken mentioned earlier CTS288 type encoders

[Kennair]

Clint,

This appears to be an 8 position rotary switch, bit like the ones you buy at **** Smith's or Altronics, but is PCB mounted and with long-life gold contacts. It would be useful for simulating a 45 degree switch (sort of).

Ken.

[Erich68]

Hi,
Pleased to meet you! This is my first post. The subject of rotary encoders was so intriguing, I thought I might say something!

I caught Clint's rotary encoder query on google actually. At first, I looked at the whole subject and promptly shelved ever using them. And then I built the MJoy16 (two actually!) and went bonkers when everything worked except---you guessed it---the rotary encoders! I thought they were just fancy switches. So I built Jim's design ('jimspage', your neighbor!) but missed the fact he was using it with a special keyboard encoder and was disappointed when it failed to work with MJoy16. Roland (simprojects.nl) to the rescue with the simple advice that an encoder was actually two switches in one, working out of step to give a phase shift.

Fed up with all this and the fact that they are not off-shelf items, cost a lot for what they do, and are cloaked in mystery---I said to **** with it, I'll roll my own. And I did---and turned out 4 designs---and best of all, they all WORK, very well, I might add. With, of course, the MJoy16. Some of the models I made cost practically nothing!

Briefly---first made a rotating PCB model, then one with a cogged actuator (modified toy-car gearbox hacked) moving leaf contacts---then went on to trying microswitches in place of leaf switches----and finally, what I should have done in the first place, and completed today (not yet tested---tonight!!) I used the two 1 pole, 12 way switches Jim had recommended mounted one behind the other on a common driving 'shaft', but offset 15deg to give the 'out-of step' pulsing. Jim gave lots of advice on actually modifying the switches, I just modified to put them in tandem. Big thanks to Jim for the original concept, and Roland for the education. There's more 'education', if you like, in the form of tutorials on the Grayhilll website.

The only disadvantage is that they're all a bit larger than the cute 1/2" models floating around----small price to pay!!

I can send some of the pics to you which makes the whole thing practically self explanatory---or if you think they might be og general interest to others, I'll have to learn to post on the Forum---which I haven't done so far.

Look forward to hearing from you. I clean forgot that I have a 2 DOF generic sim which has been quite neglected because of my 2 month infatuation with rotary switches, encoders, thingummies---take yer pick!! LOL!!

Regards, and nice to meet you,

Erich.

[willemb]

Hi Eric,
i too built an Mjoy16 (or rather a MegaJoystick, available here: www.rvdijk.nl/pcb.htm).
And in my case the rotaries work like a charm.
I make use of the Mjoy Mapper utillity with which you can convert the rotary outputs to keyboard strokes.
With the registered FSUipc these keystrokes can be programmed to change the radio settings for instance.

Then i went on and installed a rotary 6-position selector switch which controls the function of the rotary encoder. Now i set the selector switch to a certain position and if i operate the encoder, the nav2 radio frequency is changed.

This combined function requires some programming in the FSUipc.ini file, which in turn needs some reading the manual and a lot of trial and error. But once you got it working it is just great.

With this you can overcome the 4 encoder limit of Mjoy.
For now i have programmed the nav1,2 and com1,2 radios. Still to do are ADF, various autopilot settings etc.
The encoders i use come with an integrated pushswitch so i use that for swapping the stby/active setting of the radios.
Also they were quite cheap (approx 1,50 euro each), i got mine here:
www.voti.nl

As for the need of the Mjoy Mapper Util, it is also possible to change the mode of the Mjoy by use of a jumper. This puts the encoder inputs within the first 32 switch inputs and now show up in the default windows game controller application.
For me this mode does not work for some reason as it screws up other inputs, hence i use the keyboard mapper.

All in all i am very very very pleased with the Mjoy16!
That design was way ahead of its time man!
Also if you like to tinker with soldering iron and electronics, it is just plain fun to put it together!

grtz
Willem

[Lano72]

Hi Clint,

I too was looking (for about a year) for good, cheap rotary encoders for my relatively basic 737NG home build. No one in Aus has the CTS288's offered on every site in the rest of the world. I finally got hold of my 10 x encoders plus grey knobs from Sure Electronics on ebay.com.au (after Ian Scissons posted good things about them on his website (http://www.737ng.co.uk/index.htm). They only cost about $18 AUD including free shipping. I now have the Leo Bodnar BU0836X joystick card ready to go with these. For now, all we can do is order from Opencockpits etc. Someone (with much more capital than I'll ever have) should fill the niche because I'm sure there are more of us out there looking.

Cheers,
Ian Lane.