Hello all, long time no see! Haven't been active here in some time due to a job change, still in the electronics field but not doing board level work anymore. Good to see some familiar names still around, and some new blood as well!
Anyway, I'm hoping that you guys (and gals) can offer me some advice. I am trying to find a rotary knob, not a potentiometer, for a personal project and after browsing some offerings on Mouser I quickly realized that I don't know the correct terminology for what I'm looking for. I am trying to replace two separate momentary push buttons that function as 'up' and 'down' with a rotary knob. What I'm thinking of is a knob like you'd find in many cars for use with the entertainment systems, or on some home audio equipment, where you can feel clicks or detents as your turn it. Basically each click in one direction moves a selector, or volume, up by one notch, and vice versa in the other direction. In my head, this would have either one input (which goes to ground) attached to two switched outputs, where a click in one direction makes momentary contact between the ground input and one output, and likewise for a click in the opposite direction and the second output. Two inputs and two outputs would also work, if input and output A were linked and isolated from input and output B which are also linked to each other.
Most of the rotary switches I've seen have several contacts, which I'm thinking would be each position or "click" of the knob as a different output. For that matter, maybe what I'm envisioning doesn't even exist, maybe there has to be an associated controller that says something like "if input changes from contact 'x' to contact 'x'+1, then output 'up' signal; if input changes from contact 'x' to 'x'-1, then output 'down' signal." Dunno, but hopefully someone does!
Thanks in advance for any help!
Anyway, I'm hoping that you guys (and gals) can offer me some advice. I am trying to find a rotary knob, not a potentiometer, for a personal project and after browsing some offerings on Mouser I quickly realized that I don't know the correct terminology for what I'm looking for. I am trying to replace two separate momentary push buttons that function as 'up' and 'down' with a rotary knob. What I'm thinking of is a knob like you'd find in many cars for use with the entertainment systems, or on some home audio equipment, where you can feel clicks or detents as your turn it. Basically each click in one direction moves a selector, or volume, up by one notch, and vice versa in the other direction. In my head, this would have either one input (which goes to ground) attached to two switched outputs, where a click in one direction makes momentary contact between the ground input and one output, and likewise for a click in the opposite direction and the second output. Two inputs and two outputs would also work, if input and output A were linked and isolated from input and output B which are also linked to each other.
Most of the rotary switches I've seen have several contacts, which I'm thinking would be each position or "click" of the knob as a different output. For that matter, maybe what I'm envisioning doesn't even exist, maybe there has to be an associated controller that says something like "if input changes from contact 'x' to contact 'x'+1, then output 'up' signal; if input changes from contact 'x' to 'x'-1, then output 'down' signal." Dunno, but hopefully someone does!
Thanks in advance for any help!

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