Touch paddle project

Updated!

This project got started in October last year and is finally (mostly) finished!

After the first failure came a redesign, and some very intermittent work on it.

A few days ago I started to work toward wrapping it all up:

I salvaged the touch sensors and paddle pieces, gently cutting a saw kerf in the end and gluing the circuit board into the slot. The circuit itself is only a few small parts, the larger issue is getting them to fit neatly together to make something that will fit the hand and be durable enough for field radio operating.

Long story short, I got it wired up, seemingly working, and went over to plug it in to the (tr)uSDX … and found out that soldering heat had deformed the jack housing enough to make it impossible to insert a plug!

Excised the old jack, attached some short pigtails, and soldered it up.

Back to the radio; no problem with the plug this time; everything lights up; but it doesn’t actually key the transmitter! What now?

It was while I was contemplating that question early this morning that I observed an error in wiring, and corrected it.

Now it keys the transmitter (yay!) but the touch sensors don’t light up!

Pending further investigation of root cause, I have decided to go with what I have, a working touch paddle, and finish the job.

Blobs of silicone sealer will insulate the connections and hold it all in place.
After it gets sufficiently cured I will enclose it in large heat-shrink tubing.

Update, August 4th:

1″ adhesive lined heat-shrink tubing adds protection and support
After shrinking the tube I squeezed in some more silicone around the output jack to hold it firmly in place.

I have tried it out on the 817 and the TR-35 as well and it keys them perfectly, I really like the way that it responds while using no force at all. I might build another one about an inch longer to get a better grip for my ring and pinky fingers. I still have no idea why the LEDs are not working; I’m making a test circuit on protoboard to experiment with.

I’m also considering making another variation, along the lines of the Kitano “piano key” paddles, just for fun!
My working paper for this project, based on the drawing from the reddit post cited earlier: touch sensor data upper right; canonical paddle wiring top center; 2N2222 data top left; pinout of the TRS jack at left; soldering iron burn on the bottom edge; ignore the wire color notes.

I will post a parts list soon in case anyone wants to give this a try .


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