[sdiy] Rotary Switch -> illuminated PB w/ multicolor LED?

[sleepy_dog at gmx.de]

Brian Willoughby:
> On Feb 10, 2022, at 08:34, Steve wrote:
>> some 5..6 years ago, I bought a bunch of rotary ancoders with both, RG
>> (not B) LEDs and push button integrated.
>> I got them from ebay... chinese make, but they also sold those
>> (seemingly identical) at SparkFun.
>> They used to work back then. They had positional "clicks" in them.
>> Just a few years later, just form laying around, those "clicks"
>> magically disappeared, and one of the A,B outputs would give a garbage
>> signal, for every single of the 20 or so pieces I had bought.
>> As if some material inside dissolved.
>> Ever heard of such a thing?
>> Since then I have been reluctant to buy such stuff again ... ;-)
> Manufacturers of rotary encoders usually offer model variations with and without detents ("clicks").
>
> I assume that SparkFun or someone in the supply chain substituted a different model.

No. That's not what I said.
I said the detents *disappeared*. I tested every single one of the 20 or
so I got, to get a feel for whether there was noticeable variation in
"hardness" of the clicks, it seemed a pretty harsh model, not very
pleasant feel moving them.
Those are the only encoders of this larger category (e.g. illuminated)
that I *ever* obtained, confusing them with other purchases absolutely
impossible.
And after 2..3 years or so in the shelf, I checked every single one of
them again, and every single one of them had 1) no detent whatsoever,
but 2) also one of the outputs did not have a proper signal, i.e. they
were electromechanically *broken*, unusable as an encoder.
Find it unbelieveable if you like, but that's what happened.