2015/2016 Jeff Snyder, Till Bovermann
This is a notepad on what is needed to use a Cypress PSoC 4 CY8CKIT-049 Prototyping Kit as a capacitive sensing element that forwards the measured data via a serial connection. The board used is build around a PSoC 4 chip, which is a cheap and powerful programmable microcontroller with integrated re-programmable analogue cirquitry, developed especially for capacitive sensing demands.
Unfortunately, the whole process requires a windows computer but once it is set up, it is fairly easy to use. You may also install the whole software in a virtual machine on Linux or OSX. Wine is unfortunately not supported.
- Cypress PSoC® 4 CY8CKIT-049 Prototyping Kit (Mouser)
- PC running Windows 7 (or a virtual installation e.g., on VirtualBox)
- Windows 7 ISO available e.g. here
- Cypress software available from here
- Install PSoc Creator
- Install USB-Serial Software Development Kit
- Install the CY8CKIT-049 add-on
- At some point, you will be asked to install Microsoft VisualStudio. Just proceed as asked.
Copy the capsense example folder to your machine. If on a virtual machine, do not place it in a folder that is shared with the host as this seems to cause trouble when compiling.
Follow instructions on compiling as found on the PSoC Creator website.