Mouse encoders

[Rance]

Has anyone had any luck converting a PC Mouse into a useful encoder for a stepper motor for CNC use? If so, could you point me to the writeup or information? Thanks.

Rance

[Stevie]

I'd be very surprised if you could use one for that

[ger21]

Guys on the Mach2 Yahoo group use mouse encoders as mpg's to jog there machines.

[Stevie]

REALLY; I did not know that
I'll have to have a look

Thanks bud

[swarfmacdaddy]

Rance! Are you in luck! I swear i was just getting ready to write over some floppies that i downloaded about 4 years ago that have the dro mouse interface schematic and drivers on them. I kept telling myself i would build em someday as i have a ton of old mice lying around, but my cnc has a graphical update so i figured why? I remember seeing that site where i downloaded them and the guy that put that together really came up with a sweet design that works great. He takes the encoder wheel and glues a pulley next to the disk, then wraps a piano wire around that. The two ends of the wire are attatched to the far ends of the axis in question and the encoder wheel,pulley,affair are in a small project box fiked to the middle of the axis. If i remember it works pretty awesome. I think it has like 0.00000 resolution. Emial me personally if you havent found it yet, and ill send it to you. I looked for his site but just found it to be a dead link. Randy in Sacramento

[swarfmacdaddy]

Sorry Rance, I forgot to mention that design is for a DRO not an encoder mounted on a stepper. The problem you are going to have is the encoder disk in a mouse is about a half of an inch across, good luck mounting that to a stepper shaft, unless you can figure out a way to glue a gear to the disk and the stepper shaft. The software does allow for tweaking the resolution but i dont know about that if you are using two different sized gears. But anyway, it shouldnt be to difficult. All depends on how bad you want it. I know i would rather build my own encoders that worked so,so ,than to buy great ones that work awesome. Call me vain. But i get more satisfaction from making my own stuff than buying it. Isnt that what this site is really about? Avoiding the easy (exspensive )way out? Have fun

[H500]

Try using an optical mouse. No delicate moving parts. They have a resolution of between 400 and 800 counts per inch. 400 cpi means that it can directly resolve .0025". A 1/4" shaft directly turning a 2" disk can increase the value to .0003" or more.

Some versions use a chip that have 2 pins which puts out a quadrature signal that can theoretically be connected directly to the parallel port for programs like mach2.

[WayneHill]

http://www.boondog.com/tutorials/mouse/mouseHack.htm

[sol]

Home-made encoder

http://www.dakeng.com/threading.html

in the ballpark...perhaps...

[Stevie]

click here
I found that page with the fishing line for the encoder
I knew I had it somewhere

[Bubba]

You can also find updated software on this site:

http://bellsouthpwp.net/A/r/Arts_home_page/DRO/

this is updated from the original that Steve did.

Art

[Hobbiest]

Happened upon this link. http://www.luberth.com/cstep/ site has much cool stuff, but saw mouse encoder stuff there. If this link has been posted, please pardon the redundancey.