Pressure-Sensitive Straight Key

I enjoy trying and even building paddles.  Among the many I have experimented with are capacitive touch paddles. Unfortunately, they don’t work for me because I tend to drag my fingers on the finger pieces.   Besides, I really like the tactile qualities of a good mechanical key.

Nevertheless, I decided to try building a force-sensitive paddle to find out how it would feel.   I used K8CIT’s design from QST, February 2019 (pp 42-43) but with smaller, round pressure-sensitive pads mounted on ice cream sticks (photo above).  It worked fine but in addition to lacking the tactile qualities I enjoy, it took too much pressure; I normally use close spacing and light tension on my paddles.

So I decided to make it into a straight key by simply using half the circuit and the larger pressure-sensitive pad used by K8CIT.  I had built the dual version on a tried-and-true enclosure, an Altoids can, so I simply adapted it for the straight key version.  A 9v battery powers the unit.

I’m not really much of a straight key user but it works fine.   I can rest my wrist or my elbow on the table and easily send with two fingers or even one.

At minimum, it was a fun project.