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[H]4 Life
My next generation Front End is right on schedule.
It will be done sometime in the next generation.
I'm a lesbian too.
I am for hire!
if I remember correctly someone just modified the scroll wheel from a mouse, I dont know if you want to get that deep into it, and I think they used girder to map the function to volume
There have been a number of posts concerning the use of Phidgets and rotary encoders as volume knobs (and other functions as well). One of the easiest way to obtain a volume knob is with an older scroll wheel mouse that still uses a mechanical (rotary) encoder for the scroll wheel. You remove the one on the PCB and replace it with a higher quality one like the ALPS and use Girder to capture the MWHEELUP and MWHEELDN events. Send those to the system volume and you've got volume control (Girder even has a nice OSD for vol control). You can also capture the mouse click from button 3 (or whichever it is on your mouse) and use it to mute or pause.
yes please schematics pics and code would be awesome
Ok, as soon as I get all the parts and get it (nominally) working, I'll post some info. Should be sometime next week, unless I get the parts in time for the weekend.
1x Grayhill 61C11-01-08-02 (32-position optical encoder w/switch)
1x Spiffy aluminum knob for the encoder
3x 10kOhm resistors (pull-up; one for each output + switch)
1x PC Parallel port + mating d-sub plug
various connectors, pieces of a CAT-5 cable, solder + burned fingers, etc.
So, I'm using a variant of the circuit shown on the 2nd page of this PDF document.
For +5V, I'll be using a GPO off of my (soon to be had) Matrix Orbital VK204-25 display, since it'll be right next to the encoder.
For the data acquisition, I'll be writing a small C program to (for now) poll the parallel port. Since the encoder almost always has at least one of its outputs high, I don't think an interrupt-driven scheme will work here - would *constant* interrupt servicing be any better than polling?
FYI, most of the daemons I'll be writing for this project will be in perl, with C for the speed-critical stuff.
Circuit diagram + more info to come.
Last edited by rubicon : 03-09-2005 at 12:45 AM.
Reason: Part# was Digikey, not Grayhill
have a bug up your butt about doing this yourself (like me!)
Parts as listed in previous post; see attachments for pic of (probable) circuit and (rough) software to get useful info out of the parallel port.
The software is still academic - I haven't gotten my encoder, yet. But it reads the (currently bogus) data from the parport just fine, and the encoder connection should be a snap. Oh, and it polls the parallel port - not optimum, but seems to be not such the resource hog that I thought it'd be.
Note: Please don't ask me how to get this stuff to run on your machine - if I can figure it out, so can everybody else.
Note #2: This completed whatchamathingy will be included in a post about my car pc install when said install is completed. No idea when that'll be; hopefully soon!
Note #3: the encoder I'll be using is kind of pricey (~$20) for what you get; I'm sure that a more economical version would work just fine, with appropriate circuit/software modifications.
Last edited by rubicon : 03-09-2005 at 11:12 AM.
Reason: *more* silly changes to C source
I don't know if you're open to the idea, but you can do the same thing w/ a rotary encoder from an old mouse (scroll wheel). You can use girder's mouse plug-in to manipulate the events, and it will even give you advanced control options like a powermate (turning cw, ccw, turning while holding down the knob, etc).
All in all, the project should cost about $5.00 for the mouse and $20.00 for girder. Of course, it's even better if you can find an old ball mouse lying around; you can simply hack that up. If you like, you can hook up an external knob to the PCB of the mouse to replace the stock mouse encoder. All you have to do is hook up the appropriate leads.
If you're going with the phidgets rotary encoder, why not just go all out and get the 8/8/8 kit. I'm pretty sure that you'll find good uses for the other features
silencery: I appreciate the thought, but two things keep me from using a mouse wheel+girder (or the like):
Its Windows only (no MS operating systems allowed here, folks). I follow the *NIX philosophy of "one tool for one job" - a daemon to monitor & process outputs from the encoder, another for the IR remote, another for the GPS, etc.
I have in my mind the way I want this project to look+function, and a hacked-up mouse wheel doesn't fit into the plan. Plus, if all I did was assemble *everything* from off-the-shelf components without putting a little of my own blood, sweat, and tears into the mix, I'd be no better than the Teutuls (the OCC folks).
That's not to say that using the mouse wheel+girder isn't a good option - its just not for me.
Linear Mode
