Actually, one's a phidget, the other's a mouse... haha.
Ghetto, i know, but I was too frustrated to care...
In order to hook up the stock knob, which was a rotary encoder, i simply connected the outputs on the factory encoder to an encoder i found in a mouse.
Here's a picture stolen from another post of what the mouse encoder will look like.
- Mouse encoder:
That device directly interfaces w/ the scroll wheel on older mouses, and of course, Windows will register any action on the encoder as a scroll once you plug the mouse in.
Here's a picture stolen from phidgets of what a standard rotary encoder looks like (the OEM toyota one was made by alps and was MUCH smaller, but more or less the same thing).
- Standard encoder:
As you can see, there are three connection points on each encoder, one for 'A', one for 'B', and a grounding point. In simple terms, the encoder detects the direction and speed of the turn by comparing the contact points of A or B to the ground connection.
Anyways, all i did was tear apart a mouse, disconnect the mouse's encoder, and soldered wires from the factory knob encoder to the PCB on the mouse where the old encoder made contact points. The only hard part is matching up the A, B, and ground points on each encoder. If you have an oscilloscope, you can get that done, but if not, you can just use trial and error... haha
I ended up frying 2 $5.00 mice from Staples trying to figure out which points were which. By the way, your best bet is to find an old ball mouse. Most optical mice have optical encoders for the scroll wheel which I can't guarantee will work; I never tried. The mechanical encoder from the mouse i used looks exactly like the one in the picture above.
After all that, I plugged the mouse directly into the motherboard and had scrolling capabilities from the factory knob
If you don't want to use the scroll function though, you can use girder, as I mentioned earlier, to manipulate events that happen when you scroll the 'wheel' (i.e. volume, up/down arrow, etc.).
Oh yeah, thanks for the compliments! This whole project is my baby
The monitor placement was a fortunate circumstance I was able to come by. Unfortunately, while it's ideal for viewing while using GPS, the position also makes it impractical to use the touchscreen while driving.
Thanks a lot silencery for elaborating! It's been really helpful.
Now my next question is about the phidget rotary encoder. Could it be used for the same functions as the mouse encoder? I just want to intergrate a knob for volume control and maybe another for scrolling through a list. I guess I would like to know the advantage of using the mouse encoder over two phidgets? Price?
anytime, glad I could help out
The phidgets encoder is awesome. The advantage with using the encoder is that its really flexible and easy to program for. If you use girder, there are pre-written scripts that you can define actions for. For instance, turning the knob while in the 'up' position can be one set of actions while turning the knob and pushing down on it can be another set of actions, just like a griffin powermate.
In this aspect, a phidgets encoder is actually better than a mouse cuz it can distinguish between up and down positions. For a mouse encoder, there are basically only three positions, scroll up, scroll down, and middle click. Of course, if you're really hardcore, you could write your own plug-in for girder to obtain the same level of control for your mouse...
Anyways, the reason i didn't go w/ two phidgets is cuz I was never able to figure out how to get two of them to work together! The predifined script for girder is written to accomodate for this, but for some reaon, it never worked for me. After getting too fed up w/ trying to get two working at once, I just decided to use a mouse for the other.
And yeah, a mouse is MUCH cheaper... a phidgets encoder is like $30.
Can you tell me where to buy a mouse like theese?Originally Posted by silencery
I've never seen a wheel mouse with a mechanical encoder... since i can remember every mouse I've got had optical encoders for the scroll wheel...
like this (excuse me for bad quality photo):
BMW E36 Project [ =======§== ]
Hardware:
Lilliput 7" Touchscreen - Epia M-10000 - HQCT 1.0 FM Radio - 2.5" 80Gb - USB GPS
Software:
FrodoPlayer 1.10 & MapMonkey with FriBruMet Skins by Frigor.
Frigor,
I bought mine from a large office-supply chain here in the U.S. The one i used looked something like this:
http://www.kensington.com/html/1008.html
I think there is a much better chance of finding a rotary encoder if the mouse is a ball mouse. If i'm not mistaken though, this mouse from Creative has a rotary encoder as well (although its quite expensive!); it's the Creative Mouse optical 5000:
http://us.creative.com/products/prod...3&product=9146
Best of luck!
Like this?
http://www.genux.com/scheda.asp?idprod=11259
BMW E36 Project [ =======§== ]
Hardware:
Lilliput 7" Touchscreen - Epia M-10000 - HQCT 1.0 FM Radio - 2.5" 80Gb - USB GPS
Software:
FrodoPlayer 1.10 & MapMonkey with FriBruMet Skins by Frigor.
Dude that awesome. I love how you can't even tell its there except you see a screen but theres no way or knowing where the comp. is.
Frigor,
Sorry, i gave you the wrong link. In all likelyhood, the one you found should work, but here is the exact model I used for my project:
http://www.mic-innovations.com/mi/details.cfm?id=PD96I
I just checked my receipts and confirmed that it was indeed this model that I took apart. I paid about $7USD for it, so I bought 2
Sniper,
Thanks for the kind words! You should come out to our next meet and see it in person
Ok man! I'vand
and none of the sellers that have this mouse ship to Italy...
Is there someone so kind to buy it and ship to me the pbc? I'm hopeless!
I'll PayPal you... Help me!
P.S. @ silencery: your project rocks!
BMW E36 Project [ =======§== ]
Hardware:
Lilliput 7" Touchscreen - Epia M-10000 - HQCT 1.0 FM Radio - 2.5" 80Gb - USB GPS
Software:
FrodoPlayer 1.10 & MapMonkey with FriBruMet Skins by Frigor.
Posting Permissions
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks