Encoder Question / Recomendation

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by RacerX

Would a potentiometer have the same programming as the encoder? Would it always know where say zero degrees is and where 90 degrees is, and everything in between? Or, would we have to set zero each time?

programming is different. A potentiometer is an analog device. As you rotate the shaft, the voltage of the output changes incrementally. WPILib actually has a rather nice class (AnalogPotentiometer) that can be used for this - when you create the instance, you can specify the range of the potentiometer (They're sold as 270 degree, 360 degree, 3600 degree, etc) and an offset for where you want 0 to be. That way when reading values you'll get them right in degrees, positive or negative.

Oh, and another benefit to potentiometers... being analog devices, they're really easy to verify functionality with a multimeter!