Need you help to find a suitable sensor. I'm going to build a wind vane that senses wind direction. For this I need a rotary position sensor such as a pot or encoder.
*360 degrees rotation without stop.
*Very low friction (free spinning)
*Resolution of at least 360 per revolution.
*Dead band of up to 45 degrees is OK
*Ruggedness and durability is not of great concern, this is for an experiment.
*Bellow USD $50
I have looked at several online, but found many to be very expensive. I have bought a BOURNS 6639S-1-103 for $25, but it simply has too much friction .
How about the AS5030 or one of it's higher resolution siblings. Non contact so almost as frictionless as your bearings and solid state so little wear and tear.
Thanks! I have looked at these, but the challenge is that they are only a chip. I need to build the axle, bearings, magnet etc around it, to be able to attach the actual wind vane. I would like to avoid that.
Tobbera:
Thanks! I have looked at these, but the challenge is that they are only a chip. I need to build the axle, bearings, magnet etc around it, to be able to attach the actual wind vane. I would like to avoid that.
My mistake, when you wrote...
I'm going to build a wind vane that senses wind direction. For this I need a rotary position sensor such as a pot or encoder.
One option might be to use what is called a "servo potentiometer". This is a potentiometer which can be rotated continously 360 degrees; there is a small "dead-band" gap or break that the wiper will travel over. Bourns is one well-known manufacturer of these potentiometers:
Be aware, though, that these kinds of pots aren't cheap (even used/surplus - unless you get really lucky) - they are precision devices, and typically will have ball-bearing construction. You can also order them "ganged", with multiple such devices on a common shaft (so you could place two 180 degrees out of phase, to help counteract the "gap").
