On Wednesday 22 March 2017 03:58:44 Chris Albertson wrote: > Gene, > > I keep many of those small rotary encoders in my parts drawer. Some > have better "feel" and the best ones have a click button feature where > you can push the knob in as a momentary contact. With out the push > feature they are not useful. $2 is a decent price. I've paid less > but why care about 50 cents. > > Yes, they are mechanical switches. You have to "de-bounce" them in > either software or hardware as they can make and break contact. Some > are better some worse. So DO make sure to de-bounce. In my > software, after a change is detected I check the value many times in a > loop with small delay after each check and stop reading after five > checks give the same result. This method is very robust even for > poor quality switches after you find a delay between checks that is > good. Usually only takes a millisecond or so to settle. These are > not nearly the same quality as optical encoders, they are noisy. > > The 100 detent knob with number on it is better for entering numbers > like how far to move. With the small knob the user has to count > clicks the is get annoying after 40 or 50 counts. I think the big > wheel is best for jogs. It would take some effort to enter 40 click > using the small encoder. > > But I really like the small knobs for giving the user a menu to select > from. Get a small 2 line by 16 character LCD text display for under > $5 and you update that display for every click of the rotary switch. > > Look at how a car radio works. They typically use the built-in push > button to select the function (volume, tuning, bass boost,...) then > you turn the knob to set the value. People seem to find this > intuitive but you MUST use at least a small text display with a rotary > switch or the user gets very confused. You can set or read many > parameters with just one control. > > The small rotary knob could be used with the larger jog wheel to set > the parameters like "distance per tick", "Imperial or metric", "Axis > select X, Y, Z, ...) > I am already doing that with my pushbutton, but have not made it dual standard, and I am displaying the jog size, currently only in inches, in the pyvcp area on the right. I've a bug or 3 to find yet. And I am thinking a total distance moved display would be handier than bottled beer. Thats easily added to the pyvcp-panel.xml and postgui.hal. That Imp or Metric switch can easily be added if motion has a tally output. I'll have to look at a live system I guess since the manpage is "Horribly incomplete" and does not appear to have that as an output tally. And the manpage will be 10 years old in another 100 days. A little TLC might be in order... There is not, in the manpage, a G20/G21 tally out, major bummer for this.
Most annoying ATM is that I have to jog the axis from the keyboard before my jog inputs work, axis.L.enable is not coupled in with my current code, so I need to put a halmeter on that to verify thats the problem and if it is, figure out a way to "or" my jog-enable and whatever drives that. > From a user interface point of view I think these little rotary > encoders are best used EXACTLY like they are on car radios. The jog > wheel is best for jogging as it does not require the user to count > > Just remember that ALL mechanical contacts can bounce before they > settle down > > While on the subject there is a third type: This is a bigger knob with > more pulses per revolution and it turns smoothly with small detents. > They are typically used for volume controls on home stereo and try to > emulate the older pots of running capacitor. I've seen them on > microwave ovens for sexting the time also. In software you can > sense the rotational velocity and use this as a multiplier for how far > each detent advances the number you are controlling. So if you turn > it fast 90 degrees means 30 minutes but if you turn it slow 90 degrees > is 3 minutes. People find this intuitive also. You'd want a 2" > knob on this kind. Not good for a jog wheel but OK for setting some > other numbers that have a wide range but need to be exact. These > wheel are also way-cheap on eBay > > On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 10:58 PM, Gene Heskett <ghesk...@shentel.net> wrote: > > Greetings all; > > > > While perusing the mpja.com catalog just now, I came across an item > > that could be used as the jog dial, with very similar hal code, its > > an auto radio etc power/volume control, stock 30403-SW on page 97, > > right hand column. 2 bucks. Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
