When you need to record the angle of something rotating, whether it’s a knob or a joint in a robotic arm, absolute rotary encoders are almost always the way to go. They’re cheap, they’re readily available, and it turns out you can make a pretty fantastic one out of a magnetic sensor, a ziptie, and a skateboard bearing.

When [Scott Bezek] got his hands on a AS5600 magnet sensor breakout board, that’s just what he did. The sensor itself is an IC situated in the middle of the board, which in Scott’s design sits on a 3D-printed carrier. A bearing mount sits atop it, which holds — you guessed it — a bearing. Specifically a standard 608 skateboard bearing, which is snapped into the mount and held securely by a ziptie cinched around the mount’s tabs. The final part is a 3D-printed knob with a tiny magnet embedded within, perpendicular to the axis of rotation. The knob slides into the bearing and the AS5600 reads the orientation of the magnet.

Of course, if you just wanted a rotary knob you could have just purchased an encoder and been done with it, but this method has its advantages. Maybe you can’t fit a commercially-available encoder in your design. Maybe you need the super-smooth rotation provided by the bearing. Or maybe you’re actually building that robotic arm — custom magnetic encoders like this one are extremely common in actuator design, and while the more industrial versions (usually) have fewer zipties, [Scott]’s design would fit right in.