Footswitch
I wanted to make a footswitch which was
very simple to make.
As a start I used polyurethane foam instead of a hinge with a spring.
After that I only needed a few boards and a few switches.
This is the footswitch.
The heel of my shoe or foot rests on the floor and the front of my foot is
able to press one of the three switches.
To make a footswitch is simple.
I used board of 1/3" (9 mm) thick. De bottom board is 5" x 12" (13 cm x 31 cm).
The upper boards are 5" x 3" (13 cm x 8 cm).
The polyurethane foam is 1/3" (1 cm) thick and is the most firm foam I could find.
It is glued with contact glue on the back half of the board.
The switches could be switches from an old mouse. I used switches
with the most firm click. The switches are glued on the the bottom board.
If the switches make contact too easy, some extra polyurethane foam can
be glued on the left side and right side of the switch.
This is a side view.
Wires were soldered to the switched. They were connected
to a serial a serial RS232-port.
The best way to connect extra buttons to a computer is
via the USB-bus by using a joystick or gamepad.
So I bought a few old gamepads with a USB-connector
from the "Logitech WingMan" series.
The most simple gamepad turned out to be the "Action Pad".
This one has nine buttons. It is not hard to solder
extra wires for the footswitches. For safety extra
resisters of 100 Ohm can be placed in series with the
switches.
A wireless gamepad could be used, for more
safety because there is no longer an electric connection
between the footswitches and the computer and the footswitches
can be uses without clumsy wires.
In Windows the buttons can be programmed with the
"Profiler" of the logitech driver. There are similar
applications in linux that do the same thing, such
as "QJoyPad".
Last change to this page: October 2007