Building a Homemade 3D Controller

The 3D controller project contains hand-position sensing system that can preserve some appearance of functionality.

In the design, some shielded wire was used to connect the Arduino to the plates. The wires may act as part of the capacitor if they are not shielded. Some things will be connected to aluminum by using alligator clips. The shielded cable will be cut to 3 equal lengths although it is better to make it shorter. A lighter nad more flexible cable is preferred but coaxial cable will work. All the wirings are kept together using hot glue or some heat shrink tubing.

Making the circuit will only contain 2 resistors per piece of aluminum. Each pin of the Arduino will be set to output mode and a digital low will be written to the pin which makes both sides of the capacitor grounded causing it to discharge. Then as the pin is set to input mode, the time it takes for the capacitor to charge is counted by waiting for the pin to go HIGH depending on the values of the 2 resistors and the capacitor. The capacitors are charged by the 270k resistor voltage.

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