I remember someone a while back mentioning that they had made an LED jacket (or maybe it was something else) with a pot that controlled the animations, but you could also push the pot down and rotate to adjust the brightness? I also vaguely remember them mentioning a library they used to handle it. Does anyone know what kind of pot I’d search for and if there are ardiuno/teensy libraries that make it easier to work with them?
Your description of being able to push down on it sounds like a rotary encoder instead of a potentiometer. I’ve bought several from adafruit that have a good feel.
There are various libraries out there to use with rotary encoders. You might also need to add a bit of debounce circuitry (a few resistors and capacitors) if you’re missing steps when turning it, but depending on your use it may or may not really matter to you if you miss a few steps while rotating.
Ahhh good call, it may very well have been a rotary encoder instead! In fact it makes more sense since rotary encoders lend themselves more to a library than a simple pot. Thanks!
Ooh nice, thanks @Giligain_I I didn’t know such potentiometers existed. More UI options to consider now!
Or even: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10982
Rotary encoder with RGB backlit knob!
Is it just me or did gilligan’s post disappear?
@Mark_Kriegsman Oooohhhh now that might be what I end up using! More blink, more of the time 
@Jon_Burroughs Yes! That was it 
Yeah, Giligain’s post seems to have disappeared. Well, at least I learned that pots with a switch do exist.
Ahh. Yeah I know pots with a switch exist (a lot of higher end guitars have them) but I’ve only seen them used on guitars really and saw nothing about people using them with microcontrollers so I knew it had to be something slightly different.
That was probably me, and yes it is a rotary encoder. There is a great library for it which I think I had installed via the Teensy software.
I ended up not liking it much. I found that it would register a count before settling into a detent. I.e., you could activate it by turning it slightly, bouncing it off the contacts but not hard/far enough to get the “feel” of moving it to the next setting. This was not ideal for a wearable and I replaced it with up/down buttons and an actual pot.
yeah, Jon linked to your post. fortunately this is more for control of a stationary peice so I think it will work well. Only way to know is to try though
Yep, I deleted it, cause when I posted it there weren’t any comments at the time. Then I saw others seemed to address it more specifically than my post.
All I posted was a google image search for “push pull potentiometer” and from there pick a pic and read some.
You could probably raid a auto junk yard for an old radio; many have the push-pull-rotate for the bass/treble and balance/fade.
I hadn’t thought much about the idea of how one of these devices works or wired up, but after looking at a few pics it’s easy to see how to wire one up.
@01001101_01010111
That’s not a bad price for 3 of them. Some listed $5 w/ free shipping.