Real Collins encoders

Question

Hi Vlad, you are clearly a better electronics expert than I am so perhaps you can help.

I received my cheap eBay CHP-86B panel from eBay today and have all the pushbuttons and lights working. However I am not sure how the encoders work. Here is a picture. Do you have any thoughts?

They seem to be connected to the PCB on the bottom with 8 pins. Inside there is some sort of wheel, which passes between the black components on the board I guess blocking a type of signal passing between them?

http://prntscr.com/vlv2fx

Update: I managed to find the manufacturer and emailed them who said that it is most like this component. This looks promising, Vlad no?

http://prntscr.com/vmk6i8

https://www.ttelectronics.com/TTElectronics/media/ProductFiles/Optoelectronics/Datasheets/OPB822-826.pdf

If I can power the IR LEDs on the one side, then the other side should give SimVim the normal encoder signal it needs..... I think?

Answer 1

I was thinking the same thing expect it’s potentially less work if I can get what’s there working. They are lovely and smooth as they don’t “click”. This is my plan to test.... if it doesn’t work I’ll just use a regular encoder. 

Comments

You can just try to do this I.e. when the LED activates the phototransistor, it should short the pin to GND.
Vlad

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Just for the record I did get this working with SimVim!

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Good to know, congrats!
What encoder type is suitable for it (that you set in the "Input Options" menu of the plugin)?
Vlad

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Whatever the default was just worked.