@dc42 I am breaking the mold a little since this will all end up in a microscope so any LEDs wont be visible anyway and I was hoping to find better encoders but the cnc pendant knobs are a little big. Outside of the cheap ones, it seems that just getting a rotary encoder that had over 400ppr was the next jump but thats a bit excessive for my needs. Maybe i'll regret it, we'll see how long it takes to get this experiment up and running. I really appreciate you filling in the gaps!