ROTARY ENCODER

While working as an electrical engineer in Southern California in the 1960s, Idaho native Bill Watt noticed an issue with motion feedback applications: motion feedback applications were moving toward the use of modern (at the time) counters and programmable logic controllers (called PLCs), but the encoder solutions on the market at the time did not provide an output to feed directly into these devices. So Bill Watt invented one. Called a “cube encoder" (see photo, right), this innovative style of encoder is now an industry standard. It was the first product from Bill’s new company, which he called Encoder Products Company (EPC) and established in 1969. EPC’s first encoder, the Model 711 Cube Encoder, had electronics that were developed specifically to feed into electronic counters. Bill used the cube shape because it provided versatile mounting options, allowing mounting holes to be placed on three different flat surfaces of the cube. This provided excellent versatility so that the encoder mounting could be tailored to the application. Bill Watt’s invention revolutionized the encoder world. For the first few years, Bill operated the new business out of the garage of his family home in Orange County, California, selling cube encoders to companies throughout the US. Now, more than fifty years later, EPC’s global headquarters are housed in a 100,000-square-foot facility in Sagle, Idaho, which employs around 150 people. EPC also has a European subsidiary in the UK, a factory in China, and a partnership with an encoder manufacturer in India. We’ve come a long way from a one-man shop operating out of a suburban garage. That didn’t happen overnight, of course. About three years after starting EPC, Bill and his wife, Fern, realized that their business was outgrowing their family garage. So they decided to come home. As a native of Sandpoint, Idaho, Bill knew that Idaho was a great place to live and operate a business.