Turning a Rotary encoder with a pushbutton into a dual rotary encoder

Hey everyone! I'm new to the site, and pretty new to hardware interfacing, but I came up with a solution to tuning a NAV radio's fine and coarse frequency with a single rotary encoder with pushbutton. I wired a 5v relay from Radio Shack to the Desktop Aviator board's +5v and GND through the encoder's pushbutton which makes it transfer the Common pin on the encoder from Row 1 to Row 2 when pressed. Turn to tune coarse, push and turn to tune fine. Works great... except that the 2090 is kind of weird and lags a bit. I think everyone has had this problem though. I'd switch to a different board if I had $$ laying around. Hoping maybe this will help someone. I'm going to attach a schematic and photos.

very interesting idea, would never had come up with it!

BTW, I see you are in Jacksonville, I am in Tampa.... what aircraft are you building?


BuddyM

Hi,
I would recommend to use normal rotary encoder with a push button (in the shaft) and a cockpit interface card, much easier...

For instance a CTS288 connected to a Opencockpits Master Card, but there are of course many more options.

regards,
Nico