Saw this design from fablab_ruc_dk Not having any of the Encoders I thought I might play about with some old mice and optical end stops before ordering encoders from China. The holes are all the right size for the Encoders 6mm Shaft 600P/R Incremental Rotary AB phase the extra wheels with the 120 degree holes are extra to mount the laser cut encoders I have not made any mounts yet for the mouse innards or opto endstops as this is part is the experimental hack another thought was to try high grade high precision potentiometers in a potential divider cct then use atod inputs on the arduino.So here is my hacker type re design the encoders are based on a 0.15mm to 0.17mm laser kerf and are at 2 degrees spacing any closer and there would be nothing left. I added an Arduino mounting area so its all kept together on one platform.Original designhttp://fablab.ruc.dk/diy-digitizer/Great links to look at for mouse repurposing:-.https://sourceforge.net/projects/mousesensor/files/. http://thedenneys.org/pub/robot/encoders/http://ferretrobotics.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/interfacing-optical-mouse-usb-with-pic.htmlhttp://www-bsac.eecs.berkeley.edu/~sbergbre/research/publications/OpticalMouseHack.pdfhttp://diy3dprinting.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/diy-contact-3d-scanner-with-arduino-and.htmlhttp://www.wildcircuits.com/2013/03/optical-mouse-hacking.html?view=flipcard
Technical
Instructions
5mm Ply wood or 3/16th if you are in the USA
All the holes fixing and mounting holes are for 3mm screws the arduino mounting holes are for standard PC motherboard brass standoffs The Captive nut in the T joint is a 3mm Half nut as they seem to work much better than full nuts for these joints and in the UK you can not get the nice square nuts that everyone seems to use for these t joints.
Vector Engrave the violet lines i use 60-80 mms @ 20% power 60W laser
Laser cut the Red lines next as these are the holes 9-12 mms @ 90% power 60W laser
Laser cut the black lines to finish. 9-12 mms @ 90% power 60W laser
http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/diy-digitizer-with-detailed.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
http://fablab.ruc.dk/diy-digitizer/