[simpits-tech] Easy way to handle rotary switches?

[Roy Coates]

On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Lee, David wrote:

> I am well into creating a generic "twin-type" cockpit. Momentary and toggle
> switches are no problem using a cannibalized old keyboard for the interface
> and the instructions in the excellent guide some of you recommended (I'm
> sorry - I can't recall the author but it was written in Taiwan). However,
> I'm coming to the critical decision of what to do about rotary switches. The
> heading, VOR, altitude bugs and the barometric pressure knob would all be
> nice to use rotary switches but I have yet to see a simple way to do this.
> The electronics needed for even one rotary switch seems pretty cumbersome.
> It seems most of the problems deal with how quickly you can turn a knob and
> still have it register as a keypress. I guess I'm not that picky - if I
> needed to turn the knob slowly or if it occassionally skipped a keypress,
> I'm not sure that would bother me too much. The alternative is to use
> momentary-off-momentary switches instead. Not very realistic but easy and
> cheap - although I wonder if the keypresses generated would prove too fast
> or too slow. Any advice? Thanks!
> David Lee
>  
> 

The problem here is that you generally want a rotary to issue one
keystroke for clockwise rotation, and another for anti-clockwise.

That gets awkward.

-- 

Roy Coates.