Make Magazine's weekend project, 3/4/09
Some Background
Recently, I've been reading a lot of different blogs. Each day I'll read the latest posts on engadget, lifehacker, hackaday, BBG and the MAKE: blog. The problem for me came when I realised that only some of the posts were interesting to me, and to get to the interesting ones took a lot of scrolling.
For this, there are several solutions. I could have set my RSS reader up with each of the blogs that I read and go through the titles daily, or I could have set up a Yahoo! Pipe to filter by words in the title. I didn't much fancy this though, so I set about looking for easier ways to scroll long distances. In my searching, I came across this: http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/powermate - The Griffin PowerMate. The PowerMate is an assignable controller that you can set up for many things, browsing Google Earth, scrolling, Controlling volume etc..
I took a look at some YouTube videos of it in use and thought it was literally a scroll mouse on it's side with a fancy knob and some software. A few googles later, and I found a post on the bit-tech forums about a guy who made his own from a VCR spindle and an old mouse. I fancied a bit of that, so away I went and this is what I came up with. I call it the Griffin PowerFake.
It's made from an old PS/2 Mouse, a project box and, yep you guessed it, an old R/C car.
Some Background
Recently, I've been reading a lot of different blogs. Each day I'll read the latest posts on engadget, lifehacker, hackaday, BBG and the MAKE: blog. The problem for me came when I realised that only some of the posts were interesting to me, and to get to the interesting ones took a lot of scrolling.
For this, there are several solutions. I could have set my RSS reader up with each of the blogs that I read and go through the titles daily, or I could have set up a Yahoo! Pipe to filter by words in the title. I didn't much fancy this though, so I set about looking for easier ways to scroll long distances. In my searching, I came across this: http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/powermate - The Griffin PowerMate. The PowerMate is an assignable controller that you can set up for many things, browsing Google Earth, scrolling, Controlling volume etc..
I took a look at some YouTube videos of it in use and thought it was literally a scroll mouse on it's side with a fancy knob and some software. A few googles later, and I found a post on the bit-tech forums about a guy who made his own from a VCR spindle and an old mouse. I fancied a bit of that, so away I went and this is what I came up with. I call it the Griffin PowerFake.
It's made from an old PS/2 Mouse, a project box and, yep you guessed it, an old R/C car.
Remove these ads by
Signing UpStep 1: What you will need
To build your own, you'll need the following (note that some of the parts are interchangable, say the R/C car wheel, while some are very specific, like the type of mouse you use):
- An old PS/2 Mouse, preferably one that has a ball rather than an optical one, and one that uses a Rotary encoder as a scroll wheel, not one that uses an IR Transmitter/Detector. If you don't know what a rotary encoder looks like, see the last image of this step.
- An old R/C car/ Other circular object you can use for rotating that fits in your hand easily. Other suggestions are the spindles from an old VCR or maybe even an old CD-ROM drive, spinning the CD like a record on a turntable.
- A project box of your choosing, I used an old one I had lying around.
- A metal rod of suitable length to go through your R/C car wheel, project box side and the rotary encoder.
- Solder
- Soldering Iron
- Solder Wick/ Desoldering pump
- Tape/Glue/Double sided foam pads/ Pressure sensitive tape to mount the encoder.
- Superglue
- Drill
- Screwdriver
- Small piece of strip board (Optional)
Visit Our Store »
Go Pro Today »
http://wackomedia.com/giant-scroll-wheel/
Please see attach image of my DELL mouse.but i can't see encoder.Can you please help me where is encoder in this mouse?
...I'm sorry, but if it's a Duck then lets just call it a Duck.
I repeat, it is not a potentiometer.
Please respond.
Thanks.
red,black,green,yellow
yes it has a rotary encoder
http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade.htm