Is anyone here using the CapaciticeSensor lib together with FastLED? https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_CapacitiveSensor.html
I wonder if the timeout (in case the receive pin doesn´t receive a change after the send pin was toggled ) works as a blocking delay or not.
If it doesn´t waste time I see a perfect interface for playa environments…
These kinds of capacitive sensor setups (such as found in the MaKeyMaKey) only work well when they’re connected to an actual external “ground”. They don’t work very reliably in battery-powered setups where there’s no “earth ground” available as a reference. I think the PJRC page mentions this, but I wanted to add that without that, standalone cap sensing is super flakey.
I don’t know if connecting to a bike frame that’s resting on tires on the playa surface counts “enough” as grounding. Pessimistically, I’m going to bet “no.”
Interestingly, you can make a smartphone screen equally flakey by messing with the phone’s grounding, by connecting plugging a cable into the headphone jack, and then adding a long cable run, and connecting the ground of that wire to a poorly grounded electrical system. Don’t ask me how I know this, but I’ll give you a hint. http://flic.kr/p/ajPG5a & http://flic.kr/p/a2LnNd
Ah, I see the problem. So no new solution to prevent agressive playa dust eating up soldered connections, pushbuttons, rotary encoders and everything…
And I bet you never saw your setup that clean again!
Probably somethig like this behind the trailer would give a good grounding 
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/metallkugel-mit-kette-9860417.jpg
I wonder actually, if you had tin foil on the bottom of your boots…
I tested it just at home. No shoes at all.
It wasn’t the world’s most accurate thing, but i had very little issue with my POV stick v1.0 and exactly this setup. The sampling to check the ‘buttons’ definitely affected my overall framerate… but it worked!