Yes, I have personal bias. I'm a production solderer. If you think the TS-100 is a well-designed tool, you have a different bias.
I'll check out that algorithm when I have time. I have plenty of devices I have to depend on which use encoders. And in most cases, they work fine. But I believe you are inevitably going to run into issue. Where if you turn the knob at just the right frequency, it will output noise that looks the same as a valid output when viewed through a digital filter. You will more than likely end up with a compromise that either can drop a true positive or let through a false negative every blue moon. The gray code is very simple, maybe too simple.
It's a very cheap PSU, no surprise it broke.
The ADS is a cheap soldering station. Same price bracket. You increase the cost of parts and the complexity and hold to a low price point, and something might give. For something that only outputs 2 signals, relative up or relative down, with no absolute position/measure, the electromechanical encoder is relative pain in the rear. And I wouldn't go out of my way to incorporate an encoder (for the first time) in something where 2 buttons does just as good of a job. You would have to do a lot of testing before you know what may happen 5 years down the road. Not to say that an encoder knob can't be fun or cool or increase the enjoyment of the user. I'd just get more enjoyment knowing it will work and/or be easy to fix when it doesn't.
Here's an example: I have a name-brand router with an amazing speed control. You can belt out a pretty good rendition of Mary Had a Little Lamb on it by tweaking the speed dial. It maintains constant speed in the cut, even at low speed. I have a different brand that is made in the same factory, but without the speed control; it has just a simple power dial. Functionally, the fancy speed control doesn't matter. The other router just spins up to a higher idle RPM when it's not cutting. You might argue that it will burn the wood at the beginning of the cut, but this is just theory and it has zero practical effect. The fancy one actually has a functional downside. It produces more heat at lower speed settings. Extended use at low speed setting without cooldown will actually kill the thing; says so in the manual. Yes, the fancy one is cooler and more fun to use. I love it. But I'm not a professional woodworker, and it doesn't matter to me if my router breaks or I have to give it a rest. So while yes, people are willing to pay more money for it, and it makes them happy, this doesn't mean it will produce better results, nor increase efficiency/productivity, nor be more reliable. For a production soldering station, my own bias is towards reliability, efficiency/productivity, and operational/maintenance cost. When you do something as a job*, it doesn't matter the bells or whistles. After 2 months, you won't notice them. When you hear that perfect pitch constant hum, it won't be cool, anymore. You'll want to throw it in a river, quit your job, and become a hobo, just like with any other router. But if/when it breaks and you lose a days work on it, your mood will be even worse when you're pulling an allnighter or working over the weekend after buying a new router, let alone twiddling with a godforsaken eletromechanical encoder.
*If it's monotonous and repetitive. And production soldering has to be monotonous and repetitive. It's too expensive (too many chances for mistakes) when it is not.
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