Customizable Haptic Dial

TEAM

Vihaal Vellanki, Astin Kim

MOTIVATION

We wanted to create a powerful customizable dial that utilized a brushless motor, allowing for custom haptic feedback. With its integrated LCD, this dial can be used for a plethora of different applications, but not limited to,  a smart home thermostat, integrated music controller, a per-app input device, and more!

DESCRIPTION

This dial utilizes a brushless gimbal motor paired with a magnetic encoder and a strain gauge to allow for a customized haptic feedback interface, with accurate input. The LCD screen can be programmed to show anything, and will eventually be integrated into specific applications. Currently, the core functionality is a usb connected volume dial with customized detents. With the strain gauge, we can measure when the dial is being pressed without physically moving the dial, which currently mutes audio.

FEATURES 

Compute 

• Used ESP32 Micro-Controller that has Bluetooth and wifi support for future features.

Sensing 

Strain Gauge

• Allows us to add a second input without having the dial physically move downwards.

Magnetic Encoder

• Allows us to accurately track the position of the motor and therefore the dial.

Power

• USB C compatible

• RGB LEDs

Test

• Test pads on both PCBs for easy debugging.

Hardware

• Uses brushless gimbal motor

• Round LCD display that allows us to display the current volume of the computer.

SCHEMATIC (HAHAHHAHAhahhahhaha....)

BOM

3D Layout

Next Steps: 

Due to a delay in components, we were unable to assemble our project. With more time to spend on this project, we hope to fully flesh out our dial's features. From implementing Bluetooth and WiFi to act as a stand-alone smart home device, to coding an app that allows it to have application-specific features for different software such as music streaming services, video editing applications, etc.

Conclusion: 

From having next to no circuit experience to having a fully functioning pcb arriving at our doorstep, this class truly taught us a lot about the process and intricacies of designing a printed circuit board. We were glad to experience this fun hands-on class. It was a breath of fresh air from our normal theoretical, mathematical courses and taught us skills that we will use for the rest of our careers.