OPERATING ELEMENT FOR AN ELECTRICALLY CONTROLLED MACHINE

The invention relates to an operating element (4) for an electrically controlled machine (2), having an operating element body (7) and a rotating wheel (10) for inputting a command into a control unit(3) of the machine (2), wherein the rotating wheel (10) is arranged on the operating element body (7) to rotate about an axis of rotation (12) and is surrounded by a lateral surface (11) that has local diameter mean value (13) specified in the normal direction to the axis of rotation (12), on which lateral surface (11) the rotating wheel (10) can be taken hold of and rotated by a machine operator(5), wherein the lateral surface (11) of the rotating wheel (10) has at least two actuation portions (14, 15) with different surface structures (17), wherein a sensor region (18, 19) of a sensor element (21, 22) is associated with at least one of the actuation portions (14, 15), and wherein different machine functions for inputting at least one command into the control unit (3) are associated with at least one of the actu