SMART Scroll Module:

About two updates ago I mentioned that the scroll wheel positioning sensor working great with very impressive accuracy. For that test I was using the Ams development tool which was connected via I2C to the module. This software was a good start but it was time to write some trial Arduino code and grab some useful data. The useful data in this class is Raw Angle (Range 0 -4095) and Angle (0 -360).

Each bump step on the scroll wheel is spaced at 24 degrees (14 bumps per full rotation on this bump plate) there's about 1 degree of play on the bump plate at the moment. The angle measurements above can be corrected by setting the '0' position but for a simple test I am happy with the results.

Why use a Contactless Encoder:

I've actually been asked this a few times and yes there are two simpler ways of doing this: one being optical the other being the standard encoder. I went with the magnetic method as it wears less then standard methods and also allows for greater control of where the scroll steps are. This is especially useful as the bump plates can be replaced with different profiles that might feature less or more scroll step feedback bumps. While the control method used is I2C there are two ways that can be used to find the position of the wheel  one being I2C and the other being Quadrature Encoder Output. There is pro's and con's on both but I've written and tested both methods to increase the ever growing flexibly of this project.  

Community Startup:

From today I'm pleased to announce that we have opened a Official Discord Server for RX-Modulus. We hope it will became the start of a larger community to ask questions, quickly interact with the team, help others, share ideas and designs to developed this project further. Of course anyone can still write comments on the Hackaday project page and the project page and logs will keep being updated (I'm still around and online on Hackaday). Just moving some of the specific background project discussions and sharing of ideas and files on Discord as its cleaner and easier to manage. A GitHub server will be made once more firmware has been developed and when I'm happy to release the electronic files and STEP models for the mouse. To start people off designing their panel sets and possible module add-on's. 

If the embedded link in the image does not work please use the following link:

https://discord.gg/QHwkX8B