DIY Knobster almost no reaction. [solved]

Support for the SimWareKits Knobster in combination with Air Manager and Air Player

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Langschwert
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DIY Knobster almost no reaction. [solved]

#1 Post by Langschwert »

Hey,
I purchased AM just a few days ago so I hope I got the most recent drivers. ;)
I bought a "Arduino Nano V3.0 kompatible Board ATMEL ATmega328 16mhz CH340G"
and two "KY-040 Rotary Encoder". Yes, I know, that´s a two knob solution. But it´s a way to start knobbing at all. (20 detents a turn)
I flashed the board as an Arduino successfully and it is recognized as the Knobster A on COM30 (or other ports, I tried several USB ports).
I connected GND, D4 and D5 to GND, CLK and DT. I tried the switch and D2 and D3 as well.
I tried 1, 2 and 4 as detents in the setup.
I am using an external touch screen. And have tried the main screen of course but no difference.

My Problem: the turn on the knob is being recognized as existing since the selected yellow button brightens up on turning but it doesn´t change the value most of the time. Now and again there is a tiny change to HDG or a letter changes in FMS but that´s it. It could be described as "almost never". So where to start looking for the problem? Would you expect hardware or software to be more likely? I tried all my ideas and now I am in need of external cerebral input. :)
Last edited by Langschwert on Mon Oct 25, 2021 6:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Ralph
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Re: DIY Knobster almost no reaction.

#2 Post by Ralph »

There are quite a lot of people using the DIY Knobster, so the problem is in the hardware. The best thing you can do right now, I think, is build a test instrument with two dials and print the inputs to the console.

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Re: DIY Knobster almost no reaction.

#3 Post by jph »

It shouldn't make any difference but try connecting the ky-40 + pin to the arduino 5V pin. The knobster code has the weak pull ups set so shouldn't need the 10k pullups on the KY-40, but worth trying in case you have some contamination on the KY-40 pcb tracks. I presume you have tried both encoders with same result ?
If that doesn't work and you are absolutely 100% sure of your wiring then definitely do as Ralph suggests.
Joe. CISSP, MSc.

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Langschwert
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Re: DIY Knobster almost no reaction.

#4 Post by Langschwert »

Yep, I tried both and I tried the 5V already. May it be that the Nano compatible board is not THAT Nano compatible?
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Re: DIY Knobster almost no reaction.

#5 Post by Langschwert »

Oh, I should have mentioned - I have a touch screen connected and that too does not work with knobs. I can "touch" (highlight) buttons but I almost can´t turn them, very much like the DIY Knobster. Coincident?
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Re: DIY Knobster almost no reaction.

#6 Post by Ralph »

Then something else might be going wrong. Are you using the latest plugin? It can be a firewall issue as well.

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Re: DIY Knobster almost no reaction.

#7 Post by Sling »

2 issues here. Perhaps related but perhaps not. Some troubleshooting steps required to get more information.

Can you answer the following and report back.

When you say the touch doesn’t work do you mean buttons as well or just dials. If it’s just dials that highlight in blue then it takes a little bit of technique. You touch the knob in question until it highlights in blue then will still touching the screen move your finger outside of the blue highlight area and begin to rotate around the circle keeping the rotation quite large. Does this work?

What panel or instruments are you testing this with?

Your description of your encoder to Arduino board wiring is not clear so can you post a schematic or a table showing exactly what encoder pin goes to what Arduino pin. If it is not a comms or plugin issue then there is a good chance you have made a mistake with your wiring.

I’m sure it will be something straight forward.

Tony

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Langschwert
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Re: DIY Knobster almost no reaction.

#8 Post by Langschwert »

Hmmmm, I got AM4 but plugin 3.6, hmmmm... Maybe I should check that. Nope, there only is a 3.6 for windows.

When I touch a knob it gets yellow. From there not much happens, neither in small nor in bigger circles. Buttons seem to work fine so it´s more of a turn than a touch issue I think.
Am trying G1000 and the demo panel.

Wireing, well, just three cables. GND on the encoder board goes to GND of the Arduino. And CLK goes to D4, and DT goes to D5. That should be the inner ring. And to D2 and D3 if I wanted to move the outer ring. And the switch would connect to D6 if I would use it (but I already tried).
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Re: DIY Knobster almost no reaction.

#9 Post by Sling »

Ok so you only actually have 1 issue. The touch is working as expected. You will not see the blue highlighting I described in my last post while the knobster is enabled. Yellow highlight means knobster has control so normal touch of rotary controls will not work. If the buttons are working then touch is working.

For the KY-040 you also need to connect the Arduino 5v to the + pin of the encoder.They are not the best encoder for this but it should still work. You will have to have the correct Detents per pulse setting too.

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Re: DIY Knobster almost no reaction.

#10 Post by Langschwert »

You made my day! Thank you! :)

You were absolutely right, the additional connection of the 5V pin did the trick. And the yellow and blue thing was valuable info. ;)
I set the knobster to 1 pulse per detent and that is mirrored on the instruments. 1 click up or down is taken as 1 degree up or down respectively. If I turn the knob too fast it get´s a little fuzzy but that is a minor issue I can live with. Maybe it´s even a feature to raise the values faster by turning the knob too fast.

The only problem that is left now is to make the FMS section of the Thrandra Kodiak´s G1000 take just 1 letter down per click instead of 5 when trying to set a new destination. Ich will try the standard G1000 and the G530 and G430 later, am short of time right now.

If I didn´t mention it by now: THANK YOU! :)
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