Implement rotary switch, toggle switch and potentiometers with Arduino to simulate keyboard press

Question

I am making a controller for my child; to be used in a video game on PC.

I did get a 11 position rotary switch, few toggle switch and a couple of potentiometers. Now, I did check few tutorials and I can see that most of them implement momentary switch; so I am trying to work a strategy to implement the other switches and the potentiometers. As board I am using a teensy 3.1

• for the rotary switch I was thinking to connect the right 5 poles to the same signal, and the same with the left 5 poles; so all but the center pole will be connected, and if I turn it right is like if I am pressing the + button (like to increase the speed of a car), and - button if I go the other way. Is this acceptable or the signal while switching position may be missed or give me incorrect results?

• For the toggle switch; can I just implement them in the same way as a momentary button? So when I enable the switch (so the circuit is open), a keyboard press message is sent, while when I disable the switch, the button is pressed again?

• What about the potentiometer? Is there a way to have the buttons pressed when I rotate it in a direction or another? These are not rotary encoders so they stop at one point; and I was thinking that they could be helpful as a way to move through menu.

Answer 1

Some solutions that I did implement:

• I did connect resistors between each pole of the rotary switch, up to the last one, skipping only the common pole for obvious reasons. Then I connected the first notch to positive, the last notch to negative and the common pin to one of the analog input of the controller; so when I read the values; I get finite steps between each notch; and as such, I can implement the various increase and decrease values that I need.

• The toggle switch has been implemented as matrix; so I use 2 pins for each of them, and watch for the hold and release state, to figure out what to do.

• The potentiometer was implemented as analog axis directly in the microcontroller; straightforward data read from the analog input, with a bit of normalization to avoid fluctuation.

• Transistor: If this is a satisfactory solution you can accept it to indicate that the problem is solved.
• rataplan: It is, although I would rather see if anyone else post something better than this solution
• Indraneel: Looks like a good solution. You could also save 11 resistors if you have 11 unused digital I/O lines. Also, remember to debounce the momentary push switch.