Replacing a misbehaving encoder

[max-arnold]

I've been using my ATS Mini since January 2025. The cheap encoder became flaky somewhere in March. In May it sometimes started to produce rotation impulses in an opposite direction, so I lost my patience and decided to replace it.

1. I bought a pair of EC11E encoders (hint: don't do that unless you want to recompile the firmware to support it)

2. Open the receiver, disconnect the speaker and desolder the battery

3. Disconnect the display

WARNING: in some receivers the display is glued to the front part of the case, so do not push it (it is very fragile). Instead, carefully extract the PCB from the case and disconnect the display connector, leaving the display in the case.

4. Using a dremel, cut the encoder contacts from the top side (3 on the left, 2 on the right)

5. One by one heat each contact with a soldering iron and simultaneously pull it away using a needle. Then desolder top and bottom mounting pads

6. Add some flux and solder the new encoder

7. And this is what was inside of the one that started to misbehave

8. And finally, connect the display back and assemble the receiver

Now about the new encoder. As it turned out, it has 30 clicks (the original one has 20) and each of them is a half-step. To support that in the firmware, it is necessary to recompile it with the HALF_STEP option enabled: https://esp32-si4732.github.io/ats-mini/development.html#compile-time-options

[crazy4volvo]

My encoder failed after two days. It seized mechanically, so I used WD40 to unlock it. Then I noticed the axle has a lot of freeplay and encoder mostly behaved erratically unless I tilt the knob to lower right position. Eventually it became unusable, so I disassembled the encoder, cleaned the black grease, put some Tamiya #TM023 contact grease and reassembled. It helped partially - the axle freeplay still screws the phase shift between contacts when not tilted.
I wasn't brave enough to use dremel ;), I desoldered the encoder pin by pin using the thin blade phone repair tool.

[ultimatecollections]

One of my mini-ats encoders failed the same day I received it :)
It became hard to turn and eventually it ended being totally stuck. I replaced it.
Seems like the quality of these encoders is not fantastic.

[GrzegorzZajac000]

One of my mini-ats encoders failed the same day I received it :) It became hard to turn and eventually it ended being totally stuck. I replaced it. Seems like the quality of these encoders is not fantastic.

Yup, mine too failed after +- 15 minutes. I am waiting for second ATS right now.

[ultimatecollections]

One of my mini-ats encoders failed the same day I received it :) It became hard to turn and eventually it ended being totally stuck. I replaced it. Seems like the quality of these encoders is not fantastic.

Yup, mine too failed after +- 15 minutes. I am waiting for second ATS right now.

Why didn't you replace the encoder ?
And I guess you bought the v2 with a better speaker, antenna matcher/amplifier, battery connector etc ?
(I also bought the CNC version!)
I hope they will add a PCM5102 DAC, it would allow us to play online radios streams, and it would make this receiver the ultimate pocketable all in one receiver.
Personnally, I'd be willing to do that, but my PCB design skills are not very good at all ...