Gallery, Projects and General > Gallery

My shiny knob

(1/3) > >>

AdeV:
Recently I've been doing some electronics (read: cooking transistors, mmm, tasty fried transistor on a bed of melted resistors, yum); and in a total brainwave, I decided to use a rotary encoder to handle the up/down time setting (more on this project at a later date... when it's nearer completion).

So... what does one put on a rotary encoder? Why, a knob of course! But this meant buying one. Being a bit of snob about my knobs, I wanted it to be aluminium, ideally not have an ugly set screw in the side, nor a removable top, nor must it have a pointer. With these eminently sensible criteria in mind, I plunged headfirst into google, and I found.....



....nothing. Not one single knob met my criteria. The ones that came closest, cost at least £7 (US$10) each!! I'm not paying that! For a knob!

[cue the A-team music]

So I made one instead, pictures below. Other than the set-screw, I'm not actually sure how to mount it. I think I'll just use superglue...

chipenter:
You could mount it with a taper will only need 2 degrees ish , make a mount at the same setting would cover any screw or glue .

Nicolas Hulme:
I'd use an internal groove & O ring

John Swift:
Hi Ade

what's the rotary encoders spindle like ?

D shaped , solid metal splined or split splined

some old Bakelite knobs that fit onto D shaped spindles
had a 1/4" circular hole with a slot to take a flat spring that pressed on the flat on the spindle



   John

AdeV:
Thanks for all the suggestions, most welcome!

The encoder shaft is 6mm with a "D" shape, so John, I think I'll do something based on your suggestion... I'm thinking, If I cut a shallow(ish) 2mm  slot across (2mm being the smallest cutter I have), in pretty much the exact right place, I could glue a thin piece in which gripped the "D" tight enough that it doesn't fall off when inverted, but can be pulled off if needed for maintenance reasons. My other thought was to turn a piece of ali to be a moderately tight fit in the knob's mounting hole, then mill away all but the male equivalent of the "D" cut-out, and glue that in. I may investigate that idea too...

I forgot to mention that the encoder also has a push switch in it, although that shouldn't make any difference to the way it mounts.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page