Long shaft through hole rotary encoder?

Other Hardware Sensors
1

Hello! I'm working on project using a rotary shaft encoder (currently using one of these Keyes modules ) which is working just fine.

84769_high.jpg

But the actual application mounting needs to be mounted in a through-hole in about a 3/4" or 5/8" wood panel.

I cannot find any rotary encoders online that have enough length to mount it in such a thick panel.

  • incremental
  • with switch
  • 20-ish detents
  • for an Arduino Pro Mini 3.3.V
  • about a 1/4" shaft diameter
  • about a 3/4" mounting depth.

Anyone have any ideas where to find something like that? Otherwise, I'll have to switch to a long-shafted potentiometer, of which there are many.

Thanks for ideas,
-Erik (new to this domain so forgive me if there's an obvious solution)

84769_high.jpg

2

Can't you find a shaft extender?

Pots and encoders have quite different applications: an encoder rotates continuous, but usually no more than 20-25 positions per rotation. A pot does about 3/4 turn, but has continuous change so infinite positions (in practice 1,024 if read by the Arduino's 10-bit ADC). Definitely going to change your project significantly.

3

Or a knob with a long shaft? Or a ballpen?

4

Its more of a problem with mounting of the encoder. I.e. the threaded part of the shaft needs to be long enough to go through the mounting surface, with enough threads showing to put a washer/nut on it.

I understand that pots vs encoders are radically different; ultimately I'm just generating a PWM output to control LEDS. A clicky encoder with a push switch feels more high tech, but a linear potentiometer would work too.

Thanks for the responses!

5

I would route (carve) a pocket in the back of the wood panel for the encoder deep enough for the threaded part to fit through the remaining thickness.