The Sinclair QL Forum

I have a number of GoTek, all of which work fine other than one

Originally I was going to use it with my BBC B or QL but discovered an issue where 'pressing' the rotary knob is very hit or miss on whether it works or not to select a folder/file so I put it to one side

This, because I'd forgotten about the issue, is the GoTek I've currently got fitted in the Opus

Before I get another GoTek I wondered if anyone else had seen a similar problem and found a solution (or has any thoughts) please?

Many thanks

Well, that's just because the rotary encoders (that's the thing that sits behind the knob) generally are pieces of mechanical crap and a constant annoyance. If the cabling between the encoder and the Gotek CPU board is fine, replace the encoder.

Your Gotek should have two separate pins for the "switch" (i.e. "press") function of the encoder. If you don't want to replace the enc, you can replace the "press" function with a separate momentary switch.

tofro wrote: Wed Mar 05, 2025 2:02 pm Well, that's just because the rotary encoders (that's the thing that sits behind the knob) generally are pieces of mechanical crap and a constant annoyance. If the cabling between the encoder and the Gotek CPU board is fine, replace the encoder.

Your Gotek should have two separate pins for the "switch" (i.e. "press") function of the encoder. If you don't want to replace the enc, you can replace the "press" function with a separate momentary switch.

Thanks tofro, I suspected it was likely that, was just hoping it wasn’t!

Many thanks

For now I've set the 2 buttons to eject/select, bit messy but it gives me a workaround until I look at this next week

I've extracted the rotary controller from the GoTek and I can't for the life of me find anything similar on eBay/Amazon

Also, all the rotary controllers I can find, even if they say they are for gotek, only have 4 cables and this one has 6??? (2 black cables don't show up well in the picture)

Anyone have any ideas please?

The raw encoders have 5 contacts - common and a and b for the encoder - and 2 pins for the switch - clearly common and one switch pin can be wired together - so this gives 4.

I suspect not all of the 6 wires need to be connected. However - your encoder board does have rc filtering on the a/b encoder outputs

Pr0f wrote: Sat Mar 08, 2025 12:30 pm However - your encoder board does have rc filtering on the a/b encoder outputs

Rc filtering?

Thanks

Yes - I think the resistor is in series - and the capacitor goes from ground to encoder output - small value.


https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/projec ... d-project/

Ok, thanks

I think I might just get a new gotek for now and put this one to one side to look at in the future

Many thanks

Over the times of flashfloppy development, some earlier firmwares had issues with some rotary encoders. I think what I'm pointing to, is make sure the firmware is recent.