Better Bearings Take The Wobble Out Of Premium Scroll Wheel

April 9, 2025 by Dan Maloney 12 Comments

Sitting in front of a computer all day isn’t exactly what the firmware between our ears was tuned to do. We’re supposed to be hunting and gathering, not hunting and pecking. So anything that makes the computing experience a little more pleasurable is probably worth the effort, and this premium wireless scroll wheel certainly seems to fit that bill.

If this input device seems familiar, that’s because we featured [Engineer Bo]’s first take on this back at the end of 2024. That version took a lot of work to get right, and while it delivered high-resolution scrolling with a premium look and feel, [Bo] just wasn’t quite satisfied with the results. There were also a few minor quibbles, such as making the power switch a little more user-friendly and optimizing battery life, but the main problem was the one that we admit would have driven us crazy, too: the wobbling scroll wheel.

[Bo]’s first approach to the wobble problem was to fit a larger diameter bearing under the scroll wheel. That worked, but at the expense of eliminating the satisfying fidget-spinner action of the original — not acceptable. Different bearings yielded the same result until [Bo] hit on the perfect solution: a large-diameter ceramic bearing that eliminated the wobble while delivering the tactile flywheel experience.

The larger bearing left more room inside for the redesigned PCB and a lower-profile, machined aluminum wheel. [Bo] also had a polycarbonate wheel made, which looks great as is but would really be cool with internal LEDs — at the cost of battery life, of course. He’s also got plans for a wheel machined from wood, which we’ll eagerly await.

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An animated GIF of Engineer Bo's Precision Bluetooth Scroll Wheel wirelessly, and effortlessly scrolling down the Hack A Day blog with a single finger

Doomscroll Precisely, And Wirelessly

December 31, 2024 by Michael Shaub 18 Comments

Around here, we love it when someone identifies a need and creates their own solution. In this case, [Engineer Bo] was tired of endless and imprecise scrolling with a mouse wheel. No off-the-shelf solutions were found, and other DIY projects either just used hacked mice scroll wheels, customer electronics with low-res hardware encoders, or featured high-res encoders that were down-sampled to low-resolution. A custom build was clearly required.

We loved seeing hacks along the whole process by [Engineer Bo], working with components on hand, pairing sensors to microcontrollers to HID settings, 3D printing forms to test ergonomics, and finishing the prototype device. When 3D printing, [Engineer Bo] inserted a pause after support material to allow drawing a layer of permanent marker ink that acts as a release agent that can later be cleaned with rubbing alcohol.

We also liked the detail of a single hole inside used to install each of the three screws that secure the knob to the base. While a chisel and UV-curing resin cleaned up some larger issues with the print, more finishing was required. For a project within a project, [Engineer Bo] then threw together a mini lathe with 3D printed and RC parts to make sanding easy.

Scroll down with your clunky device to see the video that illustrates the precision with a graphic of a 0.09° rotation and is filled with hacky nuggets. See how the electronics were selected and the circuit designed and programmed, the use of PCBWay’s CNC machining in addition to board assembly services, and how to deal with bearings that spin too freely. [Engineer Bo] teases that a future version might use a larger bearing for less wobble and an anti-slip coating on the base. Will the board files and 3D models be released, too? Will these be sold as finished products or kits? Will those unused LED drivers be utilized in an upcoming version? We can’t wait to see what’s next for this project.

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Retro Inspired Cyberdeck Scrolls Around Cyberspace

July 25, 2024 by Tom Nardi 24 Comments

It’s difficult to nail down exactly what counts as a “real” cyberdeck in this brave new era of bespoke computing. But at the minimum, most in the community would agree that a proper deck should have a non-traditional form factor, and be designed to meet the unique needs of the builder. If you’re looking for a fantastic example of both concepts, check out the Cyberdore 2064 from [Tommi L].

At first glance the 3D printed enclosure of the Cyberdore looks a bit like a Speak & Spell, but it’s really more of an amalgamation of everything that made 1980s computers so unique. You’ve got the vents, the chunky switches, the undersized display, and of course, the handle. The case might have been extruded in 2024, but it’s doing a fantastic impression of a piece of tech from 40 years ago.

One of the key external features of the Cyberdore 2064 is the side-mounted rotary encoder that allows for smoothly scrolling through online feeds (such as your favorite hardware hacking site) or long documents. The cheap and easy to work with KY-040 encoder has been converted to a USB input device by way of a Pi Pico, and has been paired with an over-sized 3D printed knob that really makes this build stand out — not only visually, but in terms of usability. These cyberdeck builds often rely on touch screens for input, but we always appreciate a physical interface.

Under the hood you’ve got a Raspberry Pi Zero and an 18650 cell to keep the whole thing running while on the go. Though the Zero is certainly showing its age compared to the more modern variants of the Pi, for a device like this, raw computing power isn’t really the driving concern. A mechanical keyboard usually rounds out these cyberdeck builds, but in this case, [Tommi] went with a fairly common Rii 518BT portable board that’s been skillfully integrated into the front of the Cyberdore.

All of the STL files necessary to print out your own Cyberdore 2064 are available on Printables, and while [Tommi] didn’t exactly provide build instructions, the write-up provides plenty of information to get you started.

So is it just us, or does looking at Cyberdore 2064 make you think it’s time for another Hackaday Cyberdeck Challenge?

Impostor Syndrome: It’s Not Your Fault!

October 28, 2023 by Elliot Williams 68 Comments

[Crispernaki] and I have something in common. We both saw this awesome project that made a scroll wheel out of a VHS head back in 2010, and wanted to make one. We both wanted to put our own spin on the gadget, (tee-hee), discovered that it was harder than either of us wanted to commit to, and gave up.

Flash forward about a million Internet years, and [crispernaki] finally made his and wrote it up. The only problem is that it was too easy. In 2010, making USB gadgets was a lot more involved than it is today. (Back then, we had to chisel device descriptors on stone tablets.) Nowadays, the firmware is just a matter of importing the right library, and the hardware is a magnetic rotation sensor breakout board, a magnet, and super glue. Cheap, and easy.

All of this led our hero to feeling insecure. After all, a hack that beat him a dozen years ago turned out to be dead easy today. Maybe it was too easy? Maybe he wasn’t a “real” hacker? These are the signs of impostor syndrome – that feeling that just because you aren’t the world’s best, or climbing the highest mountain, or hacking the hardest project, you’re not worthy.

Well, listen up. Impostors don’t finish projects, and impostors don’t write them up to share with all the rest of us. By actually doing the thing – hacking the hack – all chances of being a fake are ruled out. The proof is sitting there on your desk, in all its Altoids-tin glory.

And it’s not your fault that it was too easy this time around. You can’t do anything to turn back the hands of time, to make the project any harder these days, or to undo the decade of hacker technical progress on the software side, much less change the global economy to make a magnetic sensor unobtainable again. The world improved, you got your hack done, and that’s that. Congratulations! (Now where do I buy some of those on-axis magnets?)

Haptic Smart Knob Does Several Jobs

March 13, 2022 by Ryan Flowers 63 Comments

A knob is a knob, a switch is a switch, and that’s that, right? And what about those knobs that have detents, set in stone at the time of manufacturing? Oh, and those knobs that let you jog left to right and then snap back to center — that can’t be modified…right? Well, you likely know where this is going, and in the video below the break, [scottbez1] shows off a new open source haptic input knob that can be all of these things with just some configuration changes!

The list of possibilities is long: virtual snap points, virtual spring loading, virtual detents, virtual end points. It’s a virtual smörgåsbord of configuration options that make this haptic smart knob a one stop shop for all of your knob needs. This is all possible because the knob contains a high resolution magnetic encoder chip that has a single degree resolution. The sensor is coupled, through software, to a brushless DC motor. The round LCD gives visual feedback as well.

As [Myself] on the Hackaday Discord channel noted, having configurable spacing and strength for detents, springs, and stops, is nothing short of incredible. Being able to reconfigure the knob at-will means that it can become context sensitive. It’s wonderfully unique and it’s open source, so you can make your own with the information available at GitHub.

And according to its creator, the only thing the Haptic Smart Knob can’t do is do your taxes or blend your margarita. Well, it’s open source, so perhaps some of our more enterprising readers can submit just the right pull request.

This isn’t Hackaday’s first Motorized Volume Knob feature, but it might be one of the neatest we have seen so far. Thanks to [mattvenn] on the Hackaday Discord server for the great tip!

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DIY HID, OMG!

August 8, 2020 by Elliot Williams 15 Comments

William English, one of the creators of the mouse back in the 60s, passed away last week. And that got me thinking of how amazing it would have been to be in the place that was inventing what would become modern computing interfaces. What a special time! Of course, they probably had no idea.

From here, it looks like the mouse changed everything, but you have to realize that they were working in a world with light-pens, where you could actually draw on the screen. In contrast, the mouse seems positively non-futuristic. They must have known they’d come up with an improvement over the status quo, but did they know they’d created a revolution?

So where has the revolutionary spirit in DIY human interface devices gone? I’d claim it’s still alive and kicking. Indeed our own Kristina Panos has a series called “Inputs of Interest” and we’ve seen a ton of DIY keyboards of late. Then there are many varieties of dial inputs. I used to have a dedicated scroll wheel made out of a hard-drive platter, and when I was reading lots of PDFs on-screen, I have to say it earned its desk-space. Heck, we’ve even seen people make their own mouse.

But what I love about the story of the development of the mouse is that they asked the question “what is the best way to locate a point on a screen” and tried to answer it. Half of their success is probably in simply asking the right question, and the other half in prototyping something half-workable. My gut says that we don’t have inputs figured out 100% on mobile yet. This sounds like a job for Hackaday. What’s the next big human-interface design need? And have you got any crazy ideas to solve it?

Hackaday Remoticon

And this week, we announced the Hackaday Remoticon, our shelter-in-place version of the Supercon. It’s going to take place in November as usual, but online instead of IRL.

The good news? It’s going to be chock full of workshops, all streamed online and recorded for posterity. And for that we need your proposals. If you’d like to teach a group of distributed hackers learning your favorite techniques and tricks, this is your chance!

The bad news is of course that we won’t get to see you all in person. That’s going to make the 2021 Hackaday Supercon seem even more super.

Add Scroll Wheels And Buttons To Smartphones With 3D-Printed Widgets Read By Accelerometer

June 17, 2019 by Dan Maloney 22 Comments

The first LED digital wristwatches hit the market in the 1970s. They required a button push to turn the display on, prompting one comedian to quip that giving one to a one-armed man would be in poor taste. While the UIs of watches and other wearables have improved since then, smartphones still present some usability challenges. Some of the touch screen gestures needed to operate a phone, like pinching, are nigh impossible when one-handing the phone, and woe unto those with stubby thumbs when trying to take a selfie.

You’d think that the fleet of sensors and the raw computing power on board would afford better ways to control phones. And you’d be right, if the modular mechanical input widgets described in a paper from Columbia University catch on. Dubbed “Vidgets” by [Chang Xiao] et al, the haptic devices are designed to create characteristic acceleration profiles on a phone’s inertial measurement unit (IMU) when actuated. Vidgets take various forms, from push buttons to scroll wheels, each of a similar size and shape and designed to dock into one of eight positions on the back of a 3D-printed phone case. Once trained, the algorithm watches for the acceleration signature caused by actuating a Vidget, and sends commands to the phone to mimic the corresponding gestures. The video below demonstrates a couple of use cases, of which the virtual saxophone is our favorite.

This is really clever stuff, and ventures deep into “Why didn’t I think of that?” territory. Need to get ahead of the curve on IMUs to capitalize on what they can do? You could start with [Al Williams]’ primer on micro-electromechanical systems, or MEMS.

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