I'm working on creating a Jawa sound glove and I'm excited to learn something new! Instead of using traditional switches, I'm interested in capacitive switches. I've seen people create fruit pianos with them, but I'm curious if I really need the fruit, or if I can just touch a wire or connect it to one side of a capacitor to activate the switch. I'm waiting for my microcontroller to arrive, but I'd love to get some insights beforehand. Do I really need any specific objects for capacitive switches, or will just a wire do?
2 Answers
Just a heads-up, if you're planning to use these on a glove, you might run into some challenges. Capacitive switches react to the proximity of your fingers, so wearing the glove could create some signal just from having it on your hand! Whether that signal is enough to register as a 'touch' will depend on how the wires are arranged. I suggest doing a quick test with one channel first before wiring it all up on the glove.
You can definitely use a wire or any conductive material for capacitive switches! Just keep in mind that making the touch circuit can be a bit tricky. It's a good idea to pick a microcontroller that already has built-in capacitive sensing capabilities. I used the RP2040 for a similar project, but there are plenty of options out there to consider.
I got a QT Py, and I think it has that capability based on the tutorials I've seen.