I will not go into greater detail of the code behind the rotary encoder + arduino experiment, as featured articles and great tutorials are available all over the web.

[HomoFaciens] has covered ground like this before with his tutorial on optical encoders, but this is a new twist – sort of a low-resolution continuous-rotation potentiometer. It’s a simple ...

Is it really possible to build a rotary encoder out of a flattened tin can and a couple of photodetectors? Sure it’s possible, but what kind of resolution are you going to get from such a ...

The scroll wheel will need to work via a rotary encoder and not an IR transmitter/detector; see the source post or the video tutorial for more details and how to spot the difference. Once you have ...

This file type includes high resolution graphics and schematics when applicable. Rotary encoders track motor shaft movement for myriad pieces of industrial equipment and commercial devices.