I'm using digi-pots with my hagstrom card and i end up with a rather positive result to change heading for eg.The problem however is that if i turn one way i can turn fast/slow, works fine.If i turn the other way i have to turn rather slowly and very steady speed. Otherwise it ends up increasing the heading again.Has anyone had something like this ? Is this due to the quality or type of rotary encoder ??Or should I just live with this situation ?

"digi-pots" & "rotary encoder" are two entirely different things. So depending on what exactly you are using, it

it should be something that looks like thishttp://www.velleman.be/common/product.Aspx?id=338314however, it's not from velleman and I can't find the manuf. from which i bought it. :shere they call it "rotary encoder" and the strange thing is ... where i bought it they called it "digital potentiometer" ........... go figure .. if you say those are 2 different things .. maybe you can xplain a little how they are different ?

Looks like a standard rotary encoder to me. They didn't have any timing diagrams to see what the output signals look like, but they describe its function and it seems like a 2-bit gray code type.Assuming it is a typical rotary enc, then the only thing I can think of is that it uses a non-standard pinout or you possibly miss wired the outputs? The ones I use have the middle pin as the "common" and the other two pins are outputs "A" & "B". Is it possible that yours has a different pinout? It should be like this: A-C-B. So if you connect your common to a different pin, it could produce the strange behavior your experiencing.FYI - a digital pot is an IC chip. You set a binary number at the input and the IC sets a resistance at the output pins just like a pot. This can be used to digitally control a resistance.Now that I think of it, there's no possible way you could have used this as a rotary encoder anyway so I should have been able to deduce that you meant "rotary encoder" in the first place. I guess I wasn't thinking when I read your first post.-Leo

ok so it's a rotary encoder then.the only text on them is "ALPS" & "128N"and if I read the pins with a multimeter on the < .)) 200 > setting then each "click" I get a beep ... whicever pins i combine.maybe I should try to break one open and check the inside. but I doubt that I would manage to close it right then afterwards and since I don't know which manuf. it comes from .. maybe I can't order a new one .. or perhaps the guy from the shop knows.

ahaaa!I opened one up and was lucky to be able to close it again. It turns out that it's NOT the center pin that is the ground. It's the one of the 2 outers. I've bended that pin a bit so that now I'll know for ever which one is the ground. Because as I said, there is no way of figuring it out with a multimeter. I'll change the wiring on the one rotary that is in my cockpit and I'll check if it works.Brilliant system in there however :DOnly VERY VERY stupid from the manuf. not to put the ground in the center pin :(

http://users.skynet.be/plipke/RotaryEnc.jpgJust want to show people how this thing works cuz I had absolutely no inspiration on how I would make a thing that go's " closeA,closeB,openA,openB "The big "star" rotates. And the 2 (red & yellow) arms make contact with the star at a different time and since they are closer together than the with of the star-arm, they do the thing it's said to do.Really simple and clever.

Yeah, that is clever. Thanks for the great diagram. I always wondered how it was setup inside.-Leo

yw :Dit's quite a simple diagram of what the real thing looks like but this is basically it.i did the rewire and it works much better now.can't rotate very fast now still (probably due to the Hagstrom)but at least, it works better nowmuchos gracias (or something like that) ;)