[sdiy] Using a stepper motor as an data entry wheel

[Roy J. Tellason]

On Wednesday 13 September 2006 01:30 pm, John Speth wrote:
> Hi everybody-
>
> A few years ago somebody on SDIY noted a web site that presented a DIY
> design for using a stepper motor as an input device for a data entry wheel. 
> I've since lost the link.
>
> Does anyone know of that site or any other site that describes such a
> project?
>
> Google wasn't much help.  It's overloading me with stepper motor datasheets,
> etc.

I don't recall where it was,  but the only thing that I remember reading that 
was anything like that said that if you connected two similar motors 
wire-to-wire you could spin one and the other one would move.

"Jones on steppers" and Ian Harries' pages are pretty good detailed 
explanations of a lot of stuff about them,  and might be a place to start.

Me,  I'd just use some sort of an optical encoder.  That's what they did in 
the Moog Source,  if I'm remembering right,  with a bit of weight added to 
the shaft so you could spin it nicely.  You can probably salvage enough parts 
for a couple of these from a mouse,  ignoring the mouse chip itself and using 
the outputs of the actual optical encoders fed into some sort of processor or 
other logic...

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin