<\/p>\n
<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>When you need to record the angle of something rotating, whether it\u2019s a knob or a joint in a robotic arm, absolute rotary encoders are almost always the way to go. They\u2019re cheap, they\u2019re readily available, and it turns out <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/scottbez1\/AS5600Knob\" target=\"_blank\">you can make a pretty fantastic one out of a magnetic sensor, a ziptie, and a skateboard bearing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>When [Scott Bezek] got his hands on a AS5600 magnet sensor breakout board, that\u2019s just what he did. The sensor itself is an IC situated in the middle of the board, which in Scott\u2019s design sits on a 3D-printed carrier. A bearing mount sits atop it, which holds \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 a bearing. Specifically a standard 608 skateboard bearing, which is snapped into the mount and held securely by a ziptie cinched around the mount\u2019s tabs. The final part is a 3D-printed knob with a tiny magnet embedded within, perpendicular to the axis of rotation. The knob slides into the bearing and the AS5600 reads the orientation of the magnet.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, if you just wanted a rotary knob you could have just purchased an encoder and been done with it, but this method has its advantages. Maybe you can\u2019t fit a commercially-available encoder in your design. Maybe you need the super-smooth rotation provided by the bearing. Or maybe you\u2019re <a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2020\/09\/15\/open-source-robotic-arm-for-all-purposes\/\">actually building that robotic arm<\/a> \u2014 custom magnetic encoders like this one are extremely common in actuator design, and while the more industrial versions (usually) have fewer zipties, [Scott]\u2019s design would fit right in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you need to record the angle of something rotating, whether it\u2019s a knob or a joint in a robotic arm, absolute rotary encoders are almost always the way to go. They\u2019re cheap, they\u2019re readily available, and it turns out you can make a pretty fantastic one out of a magnetic sensor, a ziptie, and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}