Now Enrolling
  • Start Date
  • End Date
  • Roadtesters Needed 12
  • Applicants 56
Buy now Buy Product

Enrollment closes in

Days 0 Hours 0 Mins 0 Secs 0

  • Author Author: doctorcdf
  • Views 5024 views
  • Likes 0 likes
  • Comments 55 comments
Group Actions
Related Products
RoadTests in Progress
Other RoadTest Reviews
RoadTest Product Reviewers

CapSense MBR3 Evaluation Kit

doctorcdf

Table of contents

imageCapSense® MBR3 is Cypress’s solution for quickly and easily replacing mechanical buttons with sleek and reliable capacitive-sensing user interfaces. The CapSense MBR3 family is the world’s easiest capacitive-sensing solution that allows you to design with the click of a mouse using our GUI-based software tool, EZ-Click™.
CapSense MBR3 combines the best of CapSense features including SmartSense™ Auto-Tuning, robust water tolerance and best-in-class proximity sensing while delivering reliable performance under all conditions. The CapSense MBR3 family comes in four small packages that are suited for various capacitive-sensing designs.
Features
Easiest-to-Design
  • CapSense MBR3 requires no firmware development – these devices are register configurable by any I2C host, like PSoC, Arduino or the Raspberry Pi
  • EZ-Click™ GUI-based software tool configures devices without the need to write any code
SmartSense Auto-Tuning
  • A CapSense algorithm that continuously compensates for system, manufacturing and environmental changes
  • Eliminates the need for manual tuning during all product design phases
Robust Water Tolerance
  • CapSense MBR3 works under water droplets, rain, mist and other liquids
  • Ensures no false touches even under streaming water
Industry's Best Capacitive Proximity Sensing
  • Achieve up to 30cm in proximity sensing distance
  • Implement advanced features like wake-on-approach to support ultra-low power applications
Reliable Performance
  • Advanced sensing algorithms ensure reliable performance even in noisy environments
  • Implement designs with Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of > 100:1
Webinar
Product Video
Bonus: Raspberry Pi
As a bonus to our testers, each Capsense MBR3 Evaluation Kit will be shipped with a Raspberry Pi so the full potential of this product can be further explored.
Terms & Conditions
  • Testers will be selected on the basis of quality of applications: we expect a full and complete description of why you want to test this particular product.
  • Testers are required to produce a full, comprehensive and well thought out review within 2 months of receipt of the product.
  • Failure to provide this review within the above timescale will result in the enrolee being excluded from future Road Tests.
RoadTest Reviews
Comment List
Anonymous
  • in reply to gsgill112

    You can configure an input to be a Proximity Sensor instead of a Button Sensor.

    There is a single proximity loop on the kit that can sense up to 5cms of distance.

    You can create your own proximity wire loop that can be tuned with higher sensitivity for larger distances. Also, keep in mind, usually the bigger your wire loop is the more proximity distance it can sense.

  • in reply to cy.gul

    , I was wondering according to the pad size of the Touch surface, how far can we configure the device to detect a touch ? i.e. what is the approx. min distance where I can recognize a touch without interfering the reading of other sensors.

    I was thinking of a gesture controller, kinna application.

  • in reply to cy.gul

    Thanks Gagan, the kind of think I was thinking was using the 4 buttons as kind of "cursor" keys and maybe toggle an output when a threshold was reached. Obviously the host could do that but I was thinking it would be useful to offload that to the CapSense.

  • Here's a couple more tutorial videos (less markety, more instructional) on how to use the kit and the software tool:

     

    Intro to the CapSense MBR3 Kit:

     

    Intro to the EZ-Click 2.0 Software:

  • in reply to malakai

    thanks for posting that!

     

    and here's an example of using I2C to interface with an Arduino.

    CY3280-MBR3 Example with Arduino (Uno/Mega)

  • in reply to Workshopshed

    Andy,

     

    The CapSense MBR3 device itself, can be configured for up to 16 CapSense buttons (inputs), or 8 CapSense buttons (inputs) + 8 General-Purpose Digital Outputs (GPOs) or 8 LEDs (driven by PWMs).

    For e.g. the pins CS0 - CS7 can be CapSense inputs, whereas CS7 - CS15 can be configured as CapSense inputs or as GPOs.

    You even have a dedicated buzzer drive on one of the pins.

     

    Keep in mind, the board is primarily meant for evaluation of the CapSense MBR3 features, so its less open than a development kit would typically be (hence we've called it an eval kit rather than a dev kit).

     

    Some useful docs:

    Here's the datasheet for the part: http://www.cypress.com/?docID=49119

    And the kit user guide can be found here: http://www.cypress.com/?docID=48385

    All of the registers are documented in this Register Technical Reference Manual: http://www.cypress.com/?docID=47952

     

    You can use a host processor to write and read off the configured register bits and make decisions based off that. The only PWM registers exposed are ones for Duty Cycle configuration of the PWM (so you can set an LED brightness level, for instance). That being said, there's a lot of registers exposed (see the manual in link #3 above) so depending on what you're trying to achieve, you might be able to do that with the available registers.

  • Does the board have accessible digital I/O or is it just the hardware interupt line plus I2C bus?

    Does the board have any internal registers that could be configured to count e.g. press up and count up and press down to decrement the counter?

  • Matthew Buza has shared a sample Python script using the I²C connections to the Raspberry Pi in the following link:

     

    CY3280-MBR3 Example with Raspberry Pi

  • in reply to gsgill112

    The PSoC device on this board (PSoC 5LP) comes factory-programmed as a Programmer and Debugger. It currently can not be used standalone.

    The PSoC Pioneer Kits (CY8CKIT-042 and CY8CKIT-040) are more suitable to develop with PSoC.

     

     

    The CapSense MBR3 device on this new kit actually does not require any programming itself, you merely copy the configuration data into its 128b register to define the chip's config.

    This filling of the register data can be done either with the free tool, EZ-Click 2.0, or via any host processor over I2C.

  • in reply to cy.gul

    As this kit has an PSoC also mounted, so, Do we need a PSoC dev Board or the PSoC on this device is programmable via USB?