Scroll wheel part

[Cliff]

I am building a little electronic device and I am trying to find a part that
is similar to the scroll wheel of a mouse, except that I don't the wheel to
be clickable, I just need it to turn and get some kind of reading out of it.



Dow anybody has any ideas where can I find something like that?

 

[Ian Buckner]

I am building a little electronic device and I am trying to find a part that
is similar to the scroll wheel of a mouse, except that I don't the wheel to
be clickable, I just need it to turn and get some kind of reading out of it.



Dow anybody has any ideas where can I find something like that?

The "clicking" may not be fundamental to the operation. For example
my Icom receiver has a tuning mechanism that you can select whether
there is a detent action or not.

There are also a bunch of rotary encoders here:

http://www.semiconductor.agilent.com/cgi-bin/morpheus/home/home.jsp?pS
ection=Motion+Control

Regards
Ian

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

I am building a little electronic device and I am trying to find a part that
is similar to the scroll wheel of a mouse, except that I don't the wheel to
be clickable, I just need it to turn and get some kind of reading out of it.



Dow anybody has any ideas where can I find something like that?

It would probably be easiest to cannibalize the mechanism out of a
scroll mouse and modify it to prevent it from being able to move "in"
under pressure. For a one-off.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[SioL]

It would probably be easiest to cannibalize the mechanism out of a
scroll mouse and modify it to prevent it from being able to move "in"
under pressure. For a one-off.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

Perhaps if he told us what he needs the wheel for?

Siol.

 

[Cliff]

This is really not an option, as I will be building several of these
devises. I need a place to buy only that part so that it would be as cheap
as it can be.

Perhaps if he told us what he needs the wheel for?

The scroll wheel will be used to scroll the screen of the device that I am
building, much the same way as a coputer mouse wheel button or the Apple
iPod scroll wheel http://www.apple.com/ipod/ scrolls the content of the
rscreen. Resolution and accurasy are no that important The key word here is
cheap.


Thank you.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

This is really not an option, as I will be building several of these
devises. I need a place to buy only that part so that it would be as cheap
as it can be.

For "several" (up to 20 or 30), I think your best bet is still to
cannibalize, or look for surplus. You can get opto-mech scroll mice
online for $5, I've seen them in bins for even less. There are also
cheap dual-scroll (horiz/vert) mice, but I've not seen them in North
America.

http://www.dealsonic.com/dynhigprecbl.html

An encoder with a suitable right-angle knob will probably run you more
than that as a component in small quantities, if you can even find
them.

The scroll wheel will be used to scroll the screen of the device that I am
building, much the same way as a coputer mouse wheel button or the Apple
iPod scroll wheel http://www.apple.com/ipod/ scrolls the content of the
rscreen. Resolution and accurasy are no that important The key word here is
cheap.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Gary Tait]

Whereas On Fri, 03 Oct 2003 17:47:19 GMT, "Cliff" <[email protected]>
scribbled:
, I thus relpy:

This is really not an option, as I will be building several of these
devises. I need a place to buy only that part so that it would be as cheap
as it can be.


The scroll wheel will be used to scroll the screen of the device that I am
building, much the same way as a coputer mouse wheel button or the Apple
iPod scroll wheel http://www.apple.com/ipod/ scrolls the content of the
rscreen. Resolution and accurasy are no that important The key word here is
cheap.


Thank you.

All the scroll wheel is is another optically interruptedmouse wheel,
with a rubber tire around it, You can eliminate the slide holder which
dives the push function.

 

[Cliff]

This is all good information, but I wonder if there is a company out there
that would sell me just the scroll wheels by themselves for some killer 50
cents or close to that. That would be nice.

 

[Wouter van Ooijen]

I am building a little electronic device and I am trying to find a part that

is similar to the scroll wheel of a mouse, except that I don't the wheel to
be clickable, I just need it to turn and get some kind of reading out of it.

I sell trackballs (the things used in laptops) with (TTL level) mouse
compatible serial output for $ 4.38. Do some searching and you might
find where I got them from

Or get you a mouse, dissect it, and you have two rotary encoders. Just
attach wheels.


Wouter van Ooijen

-- ------------------------------------
http://www.voti.nl
PICmicro chips, programmers, consulting

 

[Ian Stirling]

This is all good information, but I wonder if there is a company out there
that would sell me just the scroll wheels by themselves for some killer 50
cents or close to that. That would be nice.

<snip quoted message incorrectly placed at bottom>

It's all in the numbers.

You are very unlikely to find scrollwheels at that price.
The mice makers buy a hundred thousand at a time, and they probably
make part/most of it themselves in custom injection molding as part of
the case.
In ones, or even hundreds, the price is greater than a whole mouse.
I can buy mice for peanuts.
An optical PS/2 mouse (with harry potter logo on it) I just saw at around $4
us (http://www.ebuyer.com/) with a scrollwheel.
IIRC, the non-optical ones are even cheaper.

 

[Cliff]

Hey Wouter:

Let me tell it to you as it is: I am not really interested in trackballs so
unfortunately, I won't be buying them but thanks for the offer, however!!!,
why not be a nice guy and tell me where you get those things from, I would
like to contact the company and see if they know of someone else that would
sell the scroll wheels.

Come one... What you say....... it was my birthday last week and you didn't
get me anything, this is your chance to make it up to me

Regards

 

[Wouter van Ooijen]

Let me tell it to you as it is: I am not really interested in trackballs so

unfortunately, I won't be buying them but thanks for the offer, however!!!,
why not be a nice guy and tell me where you get those things from, I would
like to contact the company and see if they know of someone else that would
sell the scroll wheels.

Its a surplus company, and AFAIK they don't sell scrollwheels.

If you want to receive private info you should provide an email
address....




Wouter van Ooijen

-- ------------------------------------
http://www.voti.nl
PICmicro chips, programmers, consulting

 

[Cliff]

[email protected]

just remove the first 4 letters of the email address for it to work (anti
spam strategy).

Thanks.

 

[Ben Bradley]

This is all good information, but I wonder if there is a company out there
that would sell me just the scroll wheels by themselves for some killer 50
cents or close to that. That would be nice.

Does it need continuous turning and/or an optical/quadrature
interface? If not, keep reading...
Perhaps you could use a small potentiometer and plastic knob in the
shape of a disc, with the edge sticking out of a slot, as is often
used to control the volume of the earphone output of CD-ROM drives and
portable radios/CD players. These things have been made in high
volumes since at least the '60's (when I first recall seeing portable
transistor radios with these parts for volume and tuning).