Hello! Forgive me as I know basically nothing about all of this.

I have a wireling zero with a TinyCircuits cap touch strip. I need it to be more sensitive so that I can give inputs without actually touching it.
Is this done in the software (using CapTouchSimple) or do I need to change/add a resistor somewhere on this board?

Ultimately I am trying to sense through about 1/2" of silicone. I may extend the touch points as well if they need to be spaced further apart or if they need to be enlarged with a copper pad or something like that.

Thank you!

Hi there,

Since silicone is an insulator, you would want to extend the touch points/copper plates. I'm not sure on the exact material specs involved that might answer how much copper, but something analog (like a push button) might work better than scraping the insulation on the PCB and adding more copper.

Can you tell me more about what you are making? I may have some better recommendations on how you can accomplish your goals.

I'll add that I've applied a 1/8" sheet of acrylic to the cap touch pads directly with some double-sided tape and had luck with being able to detect a touch. Have you tested the silicone layer? Can you do a thinner layer? What all have you tested so far?

Cheers,
Réna

Yes, silicone is an insulator. So is wood, yet there are dozens of videos of people using cap touch through fairly thick wood. I may switch to acrylic as well for my lens, but would like to make the silicone work. I think my goal here is to get past the predetermined capTouch.isTouched that has filtered the sensitivity quite low to avoid noise.

There is a video using a different product where the user does 3 things.
1. edits the code to be WAY more sensitive,
2. Uses are larger pad/conductor
3. Changes a resistor for higher sensitivity.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvMYqBj6CSg

I dont want to have to order that other board if I can make this one work.

Thanks!

Have you tested the 1/2" silicone with the cap touch sensor?

If you want to edit the library, the CapTouchWireling.h and .cpp are available on our GitHub: https://github.com/TinyCircuits/TinyCircuits-ATtiny841-Library

You should have a local copy of the library from the tutorial example.

Cheers,
Réna