An In-Depth Look At The Haptic Smart Knob

At Hackaday, we appreciate people situations when we get a opportunity to adhere to up on a venture that we have previously featured. Commonly, it’s because the venture has advanced in some considerable way, which is normally excellent to see. Often, however, new specifics on the primary task are available, and which is in which we discover ourselves with [Scott Bez] and his haptic clever knob job.

Warn viewers could recall [Scott]’s announcement of this venture back again in March. It made very a splash, with favorable responses and a normal “Why didn’t I imagine of that?” vibe. And with great reason the make good quality is fantastic, and the plan is basic but potent. By attaching a knob to the shaft of a brushless DC motor and mounting a tiny round Lcd screen in the center, [Scott] arrived up with an input system that could be reprogrammed on the fly. The BLDC can supply virtual detents at any interval though producing haptic feed-back for button pushes, and the Liquid crystal display monitor can give user feedback.

But how is this kind of a factor designed? Which is the matter of the existing video clip, which has a ton of neat design details and construct insights. The significant problem for [Scott] was supporting the Liquid crystal display screen in the middle of the knob whilst continue to permitting the knob — and the motor — to rotate. Component of the resolution was, unfortunately, a hollow-shaft motor that was out of stock quickly right after he introduced this task hopefully a ideal alternative will be out there soon. Another neat characteristic is the way [Scott] constructed very small strain gauges into the PCB alone, which select up the knob presses that act as an enter button. We also identified the way button press haptics are supplied by a brief jerk of the motor shaft quite clever.

This is a single of people tasks that seems like a option ready for a problem, and a thing that you’d create just for the coolness issue. Hats off to [Scott] for adhering to up a sweet build with similarly juicy specifics.