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

[Brian Willoughby]

On Feb 10, 2022, at 13:06, Steve wrote:
> 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.

Ah, now I understand what happened. I thought you'd re-ordered a few years later.

I actually find it believable, because rotary encoders and such seem to have some of the worst quality designs. Not all manufacturers and models, of course, but there are a few that are so bad they're unusable.

To answer your question, though, I've never seen the quality *change* over time. Usually, the quality just starts out really low.

Brian