Posted by Marshall on 20, 2000 at 11:43 AM:
I would like some advice on adding a spinner to a joystick control.
I read the Twisty Grip instructions, the pictures are great,
but they seem incomplete. For example, in the one piece design,
they mention drilling holes in the washer to mount screws and
they use an encoder with nut to secure the wire when the encoder
sleeve was shown at the top of the shaft. Does anyone have an
exploded view of the twisty grip complete assembly showing the
stack-up above and below the control panel?
Also when looking up parts for the Twisty Grip at Digikey (see link below),
I found a whole section on rotary optical encoders priced between $2.00 and
$40.00. Since you are basically using the mouse for the optical encoder, could
you just mount one of these to the panel, add a knob and wire it up, or am I missing
something really obvious. If this will work, does anyone know which one would be the
best one to use.
If that won't work, is anyone selling preassembled spinner controls (other that Happ for
$110.00 without the interface). There was message on this site, about Wico having one for
47.00, but I called them and they said the item was not listed in their system and acted like
they had never heard of it.
Finally, everything I have found so far on spinners mentions using a gutted mouse or trackball
and interfacing to the PS2 mouse or serial port. Is there any way to avoid running another cable
by running the spinner outputs to the keyboard right or left arrow positions on the keyboard encoder.
I realize I would still need +5 VDC from somewhere. I would think this would be available through the
keyboard port. Does anyone know if any of the keyboard encoders supply +5VDC on one of the pin outs?
(I am ideally trying to run the spinner and the other controls through the keyboard port!)
TIA,
Marshall