I can't find my knob!

**Huge** · 09-24-2003, 12:03 PM

So, having drawn some inspiration from the BMW iDrive I've decided to base my input on the mouse scroll wheel. I plan to smash open a mouse remove the roller and rotate it through 90 degrees so that the mouse wheel is shaped similarly to a volume control.

The wheel of course would look crap so the plan is to attach some nice flashy knob onto the spindle so that rotating that would then rotates the spindle and generates mouse up/down commands for the PC.

The question is? Where can I get a knob? (Oo-er)

Happcontrols.com have tracker balls and Arkanoid spinner style trackwheel controls (which weigh in at $129 something) and all I need is the knob itself so this seems a bit like over kill...

Farnell Electronics do rotary encoders but no knobs.

Ditto Maplin Electronics...

Short of stealing a knob off someone's Hifi when they aren't looking - anyone know where I can get one?

Huge.

**Seraph** · 09-24-2003, 01:15 PM

How about the knob from Griffin?

**Huge** · 09-24-2003, 02:13 PM

Hmmm - I haven't seen that before - it looks like what I had in mind for building.
I'll do a search and some more reading up on it.

Thanks very much.

Huge.

**fluffy2097** · 09-24-2003, 04:01 PM

I am very happy with my griffin powermate. Be aware that the windows 2k XP drivers suck at the moment.

The griffin powermate has 6 functions:
rotate left
rotate right
down rotate left
down rotate right
click
long click

However. The current xp 2k drivers will register a down rotate command with down rotate AND a click command. This can cause you to accidentally do things you didn't want to.

Also. The programming system isn't very powerful. You cannot control programs that are in the background.

There is an upside. There is a program called Girder that will let you control programs in the background with the powermate. It does have a steep learning curve though, so be warned.

**telekineticfool** · 09-29-2003, 07:08 PM

If you're still interested in your original knob idea, let me know...I'll make one for you out of aluminum, plastic, steel, or brass, either polished or sandblasted surface finish, to any dimensions you can give me...all for the price of shipping and shipping materials. :-) This goes for anybody, I don't check the forum much, just email me: themartinsector@hotmail.com

I personally am going to get a Griffen, gut it, and make a knob small enough so that the whole unit sits neatly in my cigarette lighter spot.