Re: Printing encoder wheels

Subject:

Comments:
: Oh, did YOU write this program. It's a very handy utility. Thank You. I actually printed up the encoder wheels on my own printer (Epson 440) and took them to Staples to have them copy them onto TRANSPARENCIES using their LASER printer. I asked the girl to make them as DARK as possible. I do find, that with more teeth, the print quality you get is not as good, the space that's supposed to be clear has extraneous pixels of black, sometimes it looks kind of fuzzy, so I can see that it might be possible for the light to be blocked in them. I printed out some more wheels with less teeth, and the distinction between the teeth was much clearer. But, I NEED as many teeth as I can get. : I did think about stacking 2 wheels to make the black darker, but of course it would make the transparent part 1/2 as clear. : I'll try first cutting out some teeth to see if my problem is the light not getting through the transparency. If that still doesn't work, then it's obviously that the teeth aren't dark enough, and I'll try stacking 2. By the way...if you ever decide to do an update to this file program, can I make a couple suggestions: 1) Having all the data printed on the wheel would be nice (diameter, teeth length, as well # of teeth). 2) Please, make it so it doesn't print ALL black in the center of the wheel. It's a LOT of ink that's not necessary, and I want to print as dark as possible, so when they come out, sometimes they're a bit damp. A clear center I like better, but of course with the center point marked still. Thanks again! : : : That would be me... : : What kind of printer did you use? : : I tried both a laser and a thermal wax transfer, but I ended up using a laser to get the best results (The edges were much sharper). : : I also tested both MS and Logitech optics and both worked fine through the transparency sheets. I don't know what brand sheets I used though. : : One idea I had was to stack and align 2 disks. This cuts down on the light getting through, but the teeth are much darker. : : You may want to reduce the number of teeth. I made a special disk with an earlier version of the program. There were 4 rings that ranged fron 64 to 256 teeth, and I ended up using ~100. The movement was smooth and control was very precise. If I put too many then fast spinning caused problems. : : Let me know what you find out. : : JD : : : Okay, I used that Encoder Wheel creator program (I'd credit the creator of the program but can't find the name in a help file or text file with the program) to create a 3 or 4 inch wide encoder wheel to use with my mouse. I printed the encoder on a piece of transparency. Problem...once I got it installed in the spinner the mouse's reader didn't even recognize any motion when it was spun. YES, I fiddled with the position of the reader and the wheel. No matter what I did, it wouldn't read it at all. Would the problem be that the encoder maybe didn't print DARK enough, or that the transparency isn't transparent enough? : : : Would like to hear from some people that have printed their own encoder wheels to use with a mouse, and have had success.

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL: