I seem to recall reading about a guy who modified a Peet wind direction sensor by adding additional slips of metal inside to give it higher resolution. You have a very good point about needing higher resolution on a boat than on a home weather station, like what the potentiometer - based systems provide.
What about going with a magnet, as provided on the Peet sensor, but instead of a reed switch, hall effect sensors were used? I can understand how there would be some concern about the longevity of a potentiometer.
EDIT: Google and ye shall find! https://wunderweatherstation.wordpress.c...direction/
Okay, one last post on this, and I'll try to drag the discussion back to OpenPlotter!
More research turned up some nice, low friction rotary encoders that are good for 100 million revolutions, and in some cases include dual ball bearings. It seems to me that these could be used not only for wind direction sensing, but also speed. https://www.bourns.com/pdfs/EMS22P.pdf
What about going with a magnet, as provided on the Peet sensor, but instead of a reed switch, hall effect sensors were used? I can understand how there would be some concern about the longevity of a potentiometer.
EDIT: Google and ye shall find! https://wunderweatherstation.wordpress.c...direction/
Okay, one last post on this, and I'll try to drag the discussion back to OpenPlotter!
More research turned up some nice, low friction rotary encoders that are good for 100 million revolutions, and in some cases include dual ball bearings. It seems to me that these could be used not only for wind direction sensing, but also speed. https://www.bourns.com/pdfs/EMS22P.pdf