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  1. #1
    300+ Forum Addict David Rogers's Avatar
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    Hagstrom - Rotary knobs ?

    Hi,

    I was thinking about a comment someone made in another thread about using rotary knobs with a Hagstrom KE-72.

    Can anyone offer any initial pointers on how a rotary knob would work with the hagstrom ?

    I would be looking for a simple conversion to a keystroke, ie... :

    - Turning the knob left produces a keystroke, let's say CTRL+SHIFT+F4...
    - Turning the knob right produces a keystroke, lets say CTRL+SHIFT+F5...

    I've not looked at a rotary knob before, in terms of connectors, but presumably, it's a little different to the basic [on] / [off] toggle switch with it's two connectors ?

    Thanks in advance!



    .
    David R
    Durham, England

    1979 Mooney M20J Cockpit builder ......

  2. #2
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    David,

    There is a type of rotary switch sometimes called an impulse switch that has two sets of normally open contacts. Turning the shaft clockwise results in make and break action on one set of contacts. Turning the shaft the opposite direction produces make and break action on the other contect set. (See: http://www.mikesflightdeck.com/switc...dicators_1.htm in the section titled "An Alternative to a Rotary Encoder")

    This sort of switch can be used with a keyboard encoder or emulator though is somewhat speed limited. Turn the shaft too fast and the contact make/break rate exceeds the ability of the encoder/emulator to keep up.

    A few years ago a person posted a solution to the speed limitation on one of the Orbiter sim forums. He used a low end micro controller to accumulate the switch action and dole it out at an appropriately slow rate so as not to over run the encoder/emulator.

    There have also been solutions based on using a grey-coded rotary encoder. A bit of circuitry decodes the encoder switch action and converts it into separate CW and CCW contact closures. Basically this converts the rotary encoder into an impulse switch, and has the same speed limitation.

  3. #3
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    Hi David,

    It's similar to a three position switch. One contact goes to the center terminal (ground) and the other two go to different two terminals depending on how you want to set up the rotary - ie single click or double click. I have mine set up for the starters in the PMDG 737 and the neutral setting is Auto (or off), turning the switch to the left contacts Ground and turning the switch right contacts Cont. Here's how it looks in my set-up

    IN61:[-] lt ign gnd
    IN61|[-]

    IN62:[=] lt ign cont
    IN62|[=]

    IN63:[+] rt ign gnd
    IN63|[+] rt ign cont

    etc.

    So the one switch takes up two inputs on the Hagstrom. It sometimes gets screwed up a little - more to do with the PMDG I suspect.

    Hope this helps

    Rob

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    Mycockpit.org Rotary encoders

    Hello Dave
    I can tell you a little about the Hagstrom Electronics KE-72 board and rotary encoders.

    I am impressed the KE-72 board. The breakout boards and the rotary-5 encoder boards are also things of beauty.

    I have had the KE-72 wired into my simulator and working for about 2 years now and can’t say anything bad about the system. I can tell you that the Rotary–5 boards are of the same high quality as the KE-72.


    I am currently building and wiring my Simulator radio and autopilot panels

    Alpha Rotary Encoders 11MM ENCDR W/SWTCH.
    Mouser Electronics part # 318-ENC111-20PS.

    I have also downloaded a little program called Key2Mouse. You just add the DLL file to
    FS2004 and that’s about it. Of course it cost a few dollars.
    Key2Mouse is a utility that can assign key presses to mouse clicks on different screens in flight simulator. This software makes it possible for cockpit builders to connect buttons and switches via Key2Mouse to FS default commands.

    In English! You can program key2mouse so when you turn the rotary encoder
    The Encoder sends a command back through the Rotary-5 board to the KE-72.
    The KE-72 outputs a keystroke!

    Each click of the encoder sends the appropriate signal to the KE-72 it outputs a keystroke to FS and mouse2key translates that keystroke into a mouse click on a gauge.

    Weather it’s a radio gauge / autopilot / altimeter they can be operated via the rotary encoders. Or so it seas here in the fine print anyway.

    I have seen nothing posted on line on the subject but so far my experimenting shows it will work.

    Hope this helps
    Ron

  5. #5
    300+ Forum Addict David Rogers's Avatar
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    Hey Rob, thanks but it wasn't the mulitple position switch I meant - I meant a rotary switch that would be used for something like an altimeter knob....so in fact not a switch at all but a knob.... but my queston was whether you culd buy one that wired up like a switch in order to give keystokes (instead of rotary encoding).

    Cheers Mike, I'll keep an eye out for one of those types of knobs!

    Ron - Thanks, that's interesting, however Key2mouse won't work in my application as I don't have staticly positioned gauges on the screen. I'm very interested in the Hagstrom Rotary 5 board though, will check that out!

    Thanks folks
    David R
    Durham, England

    1979 Mooney M20J Cockpit builder ......

  6. #6
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    I know its a while since you started this post but as I havent been here long I only just found it.
    I used a hagstrom ke72 with rotary encoders and it was very successful.

    Using only one cheap encoder with built in switch I was able to set nav/com frequencies up or down Mhz or Khz using just the one encoder for each nav or com radio

    if you think of the encoder as having 3 terminals, the middle one is ground
    and lets call the outer ones pins 1 and 2

    as you rotate the knob CW it conects the two pins to ground in the order

    1, 1&2, 2, none

    and if you rotate it CCW it gives
    2, 2&1, 1 none
    Thats how it recognises which way its being turned,
    Now as you know on a keyboard if you press shift and letter 'a' it gives you
    a capital 'A' but if you press 'a' and then shift you only get lower case 'a' because to have any effect the shift , ctrl and alt keys have to be the first key in a multi key sequence, so,,,,
    if you conect the centre terminal of the encoder to ground on the ke72 and say pin 1 on the encoder to terminal 1 on your ke72 and pin 2 on the encoder to terminal 2 on the ke72
    Now in the ke72, program terminal 1 to be the shift key and terminal 2 to be the letter 'a' when you turn the knob one way it gives 'A'
    and turning the other way will give 'a' because as I said it only recognises the shift if shift comes first .
    So now in flight sim you assign key 'A' to be say Nav1 Mhz increment
    and you assign key 'a' to be Nav1 Mhz decrement
    and now depending which way you turn the knob it will iether increase or decrease the MHz ( the part to the left of the decimal point) on the radio
    Now if you remember I said you can get the encoders with a built in switch that is operated by pushing the encoders shaft in , so in ke72 if you set that switch in the encoder as being the Ctrl key and in flight sim assign
    Ctrl 'A' to be Nav1 KHz increment and CTRL 'a' to be Nav1 Khz Decrement
    so turning the knob left and right now adjusts the Mhz of the frequency
    and if while pressing the knob in you turn it that will adjust the Khz

    I used EC11B15244 encoders made by Alps , I got them from Farnell
    but I imagine a CTS 228 would also work and are much cheaper and more strongly built , you can get them from the open cockpits site for 3 euros a time http://www.opencockpits.com/catalog/...8dbf8d9587b1a0

    I no longer use the KE72 , not that it ever let me down but I moved over to
    open cockpits cards as they not only allow me to use real switches as inputs I can also use LEDs and 7 segment displays, motors, servos etc as outputs , and they are suprisingly cheap compared to epic and goflight
    Hope that helped
    Don

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    Don I wish to ask you a question on this subject but don't want to hijack David's thread so I will wait until he has come back to you before I ask.
    Bill

  8. #8
    1000+ Poster - Fantastic Contributor Bob Reed's Avatar
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    Mouser has a "Pulse" or Knitter switch that is a rotary switch. Complete 360 deg of rotation. These will work on your card as they are a switch not a rotary encoder. Turn the switch to the right get one switch output, turn it to the left and get another. Mouser part number is 105-SR10030-PS . Hope this helps.
    Bob Reed

  9. #9
    300+ Forum Addict David Rogers's Avatar
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    Don - wow, that's really interesting. That's a great solution.

    Bob - Cheers, that sounds pretty simple and arguably better aligned to my current level of electronics / wiring experience

    Bill - Thanks for the courtesy, fire away!

    Cheers,
    David R
    Durham, England

    1979 Mooney M20J Cockpit builder ......

  10. #10
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    Bob has also answered my query. Now off to search UK suppliers to see if I can find these knitter switches over here.
    Cheers
    Bill

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