Touch Sensor - Cost effective Displacement type

thingiverse

This displacement resistance type touch sensor employs conductive foam as its resistive element. The resistance can be easily customized according to your requirements. To build the sensor, you may refer to this walk-through video: http://youtu.be/ylJovLCM3DY or these picture walk-throughs: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/154706-3D-printed-Touch-Sensor-Cost-effective-Displacement-type and http://letsmakerobots.com/node/40683. The sensor can be connected to an analog input of common microcontroller units such as Parallax Propeller, Arduino, Picaxe, or Raspberry Pi. You can even make your own conductive foam by soaking a bath sponge in conductive ink found here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/conductive-ink/x/6761252. To create the sensor, you'll need an A4 paper hole puncher, a small sheet of flat thin copper or tin (with a wire to be soldered onto it), and conductive foam (found as antistatic foam for shipping integrated circuit chips). Punch 4 to 6 cylinders out of the conductive foam and 2 discs from the copper sheet. Solder wires onto each copper disk, then feed them into the 3D printed base and plunger. Place the conductive foam inside the base unit until you achieve the desired touch sensitivity or resistance value. Let your creativity run wild and share any remakes or innovative applications!