[sdiy] Momentum in front panel controls?

[Ben Bradley]

I recall many decades ago, large radios had flywheels on the tuning
knobs. Partly this was because they had large dials that went over a
large tuning range (like close to a 3 to 1 frequency range - this is
the AM broadcast band range, but it's a huge swath of the shortwave
bands) - the tuning capacitor turned 1/2 turn, but the tuning shaft
was geared to go maybe 10 turns. The flywheel helped keep the knob
spinning to help get from one end to the other faster. Even when this
wasn't necessary, having a small flywheel helped with the "feel" of
the knob.

There's this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCFi6lBdYaU

>Would you actually need mechanical momentum? If it’s an encoder you could perhaps detect the ‘flick’ motion and do a nice momentum curve in software. Would work nice with a circle of LED’s around it.

One might try that, but I'm thinking the haptics of something
physically moving is an important part of this sort of thing.

On Tue, 13 Sept 2022 at 13:06, cheater cheater via Synth-diy
<synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
>
> I was wondering if anyone had seen sliders or knobs that had momentum.
> I think it could feel nice to work with something like that, and it
> could also let you eg propel a slider to make a slow fade happen while
> you're also doing other things at the same time. This video about
> flywheels made me think about it:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrNEkbdXEuw
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