capacitance touch sensor

used a small pcb to design a 16 switch - 4x4 matrix, touch sensor. gives out serial data interpretable by any program... two of the sensors are disabled due to lack of pins on the micro-controller.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• capacitance
• touch
• sensor
• capicator

[noiqwastl666]

hi!

really interesting, i am about to realize a similar project! what i am currently wondering about is how to realize the communication between the microcontroller and the pc. what port do you use? usb/com..? and whith what program did you read out these data? C/C++?

thanks in advance =)

[techsouls]

the micro-conroller (atmega8) uses normal serial communication (the standatd 8-bit, 1 stop bit etc... protocol) but you can't use serial com. for laptops... so we had a ic that converts serial com. into usb protocol.

i used linux (of course - you can see kate running in the video), that reads the usb data and quite simply dumps it into a file.

all that is required of you is to read the file, in "whichever" language you prefer. i used plain C with SDL graphics.

[techsouls]

all that is required of you is to read the file, in "whichever" language you prefer. i used C with SDL graphics.

these devices are mounted as /dev/ttyUSB[012...] by linux. just make sure you have permission to read it.

writing to the same file (special character file - /dev/...) acts as talking back to the microcontroller... so you can set up your own data-exchange-protocol.

[vpaulg]

Who makes this? What stage of development is it in?

[techsouls]

we had a company named "techsouls". we made this from scratch: circuitry, programming, interface, display-on-comp... what do you mean what stage of development is it in? the requirement was a touch-pad with 4x4 matrix buttons which we produced, did you have something else in mind?

[cjellwood]

say for example you needed to raise the sensors 5mm off the board surface. Could you use a stack of copper washers or something like that?