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by brightghost 4404 days ago
Anyone from the project here care to elaborate on the niceties of this dedicated chip? I'm currently putting finishing touches on a project with a swipe-based (touch, not hover) interface built around the (surely rough-and-dirty, but surprisingly capable) CapacitiveSensor Arduino library.

I'm sure the timing issues one sidesteps by using a dedicated controller ic are critical for projects more complicated than mine, but I'm curious if you know more about the limitations of trying to implement something similar onboard with the AVR. Is there something fundamentally different in the sensing method here compared to low-threshold capacitive sensing?

1 comments

One of the project owners here. I've used the capsense arduino library a long time ago and it's decent when you don't need the accuracy. I found that the sensor values were affected by the environment quite a bit e.x. I'd have to recalibrate everything if the project was being used in a room with a carpet which affected the body charge. Maybe you found a way around it?

Re: the sensing method, they're similar in the sense that both the avr and mgc3130 detects a change in capacitance to figure out the position. But the mgc3130 controller can detect capacitance changes in the femtofarad range.