Sorry mate, won't be for a while, I've run out of money to do the kitchen. Might make some shelving in a couple of months but the rest is pretty much done.

Not with the 4017 that I can think of, but if you took a CD4510 (it has an up/down pin) connected to a CD4028 to do the BCD to decimal conversion, I think that would work.

Well it lasted 4 years, long in the bin now. These days I would have replaced the battery or upgraded it.

Interesting, I should have taken one apart to fully understand the sequence and where the wiper overlap was. Thanks.

Going from 3 (0011) to 4 (0100) requires changing 3 bits. But it’s impossible to build an infinitely precise mechanical device, so it’s impossible to make it truly simultaneous. One of those bits will change first, then another, then the last. If you rotate slooooowly enough, there are actually two undefined states between 3 and 4. Not a huge problem here, since the counter jumps thru the undefined states and settles where the signal is reliable. Rotary encoders could stop anywhere, though, so they use a really clever pattern called a Gray code where only one bit changes at a time.

Possibly, I thought that too but not sure why I would have picked the BCD variant.

For a single thumbwheel switch? I would use an analog pin on your micro. Add a 1k to the first pin, 2k to the 2nd, 4k the 3rd and 8k to the 4th. Then bring them all together with a 10k to ground. It should create a resistor divider you can read reliably. For multiple you could use the same approach but add a shift register to alternate which common pin is getting power.

​@DavidWatts I always forget about this resistor divider technique. It sounds like a cheap and simple solution! When having multiple switches I was thinking of some sort of ic like an io expander. I guess that would be kind of overkill.

These come from an era where uP had full 8bit ports so you could multiplex quite a few to one port. 4 bits for the switch and 4 bits for the multiplexing. the thing we did before charley.

there is no mechanical connection between then in normal thumb wheel switches.

Not normally, as there are up/down buttons for control of each individual digit (the 1s, 10s, 100s, etc) and usually quicker to set them individually instead of hitting the lower digit repeatedly (spreads the wear too)

Yup, exactly that. It'll still be programmable after but you'll need to remember the settings or you'll have to burn the bootloader again I think.

@@DavidWatts Great thanks again!

I am sure my fat fingers knew what to type but were fighting against me, definitely the 223 ;) Crap is basically my brand.

@@DavidWatts Lol ! both numbers are for the touch switch !

same pinout?

@@DavidWatts Wish I hadn't looked but yeah 6 pins same function ! Its late so my head hurts but TTP223 BA6 is the same as TTP233BA6 lol

🤣 I doubt I will ever really know what version I got from Aliexpress tbh

Weird, a quick test of 4 and 2 of them are very attracted to a magnet. I assume they must be copper coated steel.

Maybe I should just buy some nice wire and rebuild them, I only need red and black tbh

@@DavidWatts at least it's not copper-clad aluminum...

@@DavidWatts I found it out by accident in a lab with my students, when suddenly the cable attached itself to a neodymium magnet... I was quite surprised

I usually opt for a 470 ohm resistor for almost all single LEDs on 5 volts.

@@DavidWatts Thanks for the reply buddy!

That's a lot of button presses to get to my idea brightness level of 1337 ;)

I assume you could put them in series, not sure about different colours in series thought, they would have a different forward voltage, not sure what effect that would have. The are all rated as 3v but from a little testing that isn't true.

@@DavidWatts I would stick to one colour so that is fine. Another thing I found on Ali, is similar as and LED strip. But, 4mm wide and 1,5mm high. And cheap! 5m blue €16,45 I expected way more because it it also very flexible. I'll order some and make a video.

You are right, plus the addition of electricity and an indoor toilet is an abomination in my 130 year of house. I'll rip it all out asap.