I've previously built a tempest style spinner with a diy opto board linked to a ProMicro. All the opto board had on it was the sensors and a current limiting resistor.
Now I'm thinking of getting some opto PCBs made for trackballs. When I look at the red opto boards from Happ and how much stuff is on there, I'm just slightly worried that I'm missing something! What does anyone think ?
Long story short: Why rei-nvent the wheel?
It's almost impossible to match the quality of the Happ Red Boards with a home-engineered board.
- You have to get optos with the correct spacing for the encoder wheel.
- You have to select the right components for a fast response time for the leading and trailing edge transitions of the quadrature waveform.
-- Slow response reduces the time for the encoder to identify the transition from one phase to the next = more chance of backspin.
- You have to get the physical spacing and position right for the optos and wheel.
IMHO, it's
probably not worth the R&D effort to design a replacement for the Red Board but YMMV.
Scott