Rotational Encoders

Jan 05, 2007 1 Replies
M

Hi,



I've picked up a trackball with two (what I presume to be) rotational encoders.



They have four wires coming from each, two power (red and black) and an orange and yellow.



I presumed that as I moved the ball the orange and yellow wires would go low (they're high when 5V is applied to the power wires) however connecting it up to a darlington array driving a LED doesn't seem to affect the brightness at all(I realise this is a crude way but it's all I had available at the time)



Could please someone give me some idea as to how to interface this to a uC? Or what I should be expecting to happen?



Cheers,



Michael


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E

I have played many times with arcade trackballs by happ controls and Betson Imperial. if you rotate the ball at slow speeds, you should be able to see the pulses as the lines go low. You can directly connect them to a uC but the trick is in the programming software. Try to look for freeware for your micro that pertains to rotary encoders. you might need pullup resistors but it sounds like they are already there. As a previous poster pointed out..its a phase relationship that determines direction and pulse speed for velocity.

Good Luck --eric

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