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How does touchpad in laptop detect a tap? Ask Question

Questions Asked 12 years, 6 months ago Modified 12 years, 6 months ago Viewed 23k times

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I just wonder, how does the touchpad detect your tap? Does it detect by pressure?
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Users I tried to tap it with my fingernail, it didn't respond. It only respond if I tap if with my finger tip.
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I am using synaptics touchpad in a lenovo notebook, but I think manufacturer doesn't matter.
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I believe it's down to the small electric current your body produces, but I'm not 100% sure. – tombull89 Jun 0 Jumpy and erratic touchpad
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5 Disable "gesture" to turn off touchpad

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1 Accidentally (?) disabled touchpad scrolling
Why Teams?

Basically there are two types of touchpads (same technology is used for touchscreens too). How do I enable "Momentum" (aka
9
"Inertia") on a notebook with an Elan
There are resistive touchpads and capacitive touchpads. touchpad?
11
2 How to move cursor while clicking the
I'll start with the resistive touchpads first, because they're easier to explain. On a resistive touchpad?
touchpad, you have a series of parallel wires and on top of that another series of parallel wires
2 Disable two-finger click for right click, but
which are perpendicular to the bottom layer. They form the matrix from which the input is keep two-finger tap
received.
2 synaptics touchpad in linux can single tap
twice to drag, but not double tap twice
Here's a picrure of how that works on a touchscreen, but on touchpads, the result is same:
0 Lenovo Ideapad S145-15API Precision
Touchpad Driver

1 Enable right click with two finger tap?

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When the touchpad is pressed, two films contact each-other and based on the location of their A Socio-Economic Argument For Slavery?
contact, coordinates can be calculated. Also if pressure calculation is needed, resistance of the
Using Busy Beavers to prove conjectures
wires is measured and in that way, exact pressure can be determined. With higher pressure,
contact between the plates is better and resistance is lower. Is sitting in a shop and reading an entire
newspaper an intellectual property violation?

This type of touch sensors will work with any pressure source sufficient to bent the film and make What determines which "Feature" is shown in the
Field Calculators example section?
contact between the plates. As far as I know, this type of technology is no longer in use for laptop
Whether to tell students how difficult (you think) a
touchpads.
problem is

The second type of touchpads (and touchscreens) is capacitive. Is 'the law of faith' in Romans 3:27 the same as 'the
law of the Spirit' in Romans 8:2?

There are two popular types of this type of touchpad. Can "TA" (Teaching Assistant) Be Used as a Verb?

Oftentimes coworkers come up to me and say,

First uses a matrix of wires which looks same as the one in resistive touchpads, but is not flexible. "please come with me" with no context
To explain how it works, we need a bit of theory on electric field. How does this happen to Felix in Saltburn (2023)?

Here we have electric field between two charged plates: In Sonoma, how can I run applications in
/System/Applications from the command line?

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DIP socket that has holes which are too small?

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Unnecessary Fluff

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Situation is similar with the case where we have wires. When a piece of material which will have
considerable impact on the electric field is brought in the field of the capacitor formed at the
location where the two layers intersect, it will affect the capacitance of the capacitor. This change
can be detected an measured. The closer the finger is to the node, bigger effect will be and so you
can get pressure measurements too.

The second type of sensor is used on both touchpads, touchscreens and as "flat" buttons now
commonly seen on various devices.

It has instead of two layers of parallel wires a grid of small pads where one is transmitter and the
other is receiver. They form capacitors and when finger or other material which affects electric field
is brought near, the capacitance will change. This change can be detected and measured and this
way location of the finger (o other material which affects the electric field) can be detected.

The capacitive sensors are supposed to have higher reliability than resistive sensors (no moving
parts), have higher precision and not be affected by various objects other than a finger which may
be placed on them.

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Jun 23, 2011 at 11:26
AndrejaKo
17.1k 20 79 128

What if I don't understand.....? – lamwaiman1988 Jun 24, 2011 at 2:32

@gunbuster363 That's OK. If you specify what exactly you don't (or do) understand, I can make the answer
clearer so that you do understand it. – AndrejaKo Jun 24, 2011 at 8:11

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There are two common technologies that enable touchpads to work: capacitance and
conductance.
3
Capacitance is the most common method and enables the touchpad to hold an electrical charge.
It creates two arrays, one vertical and one horizontal, and when your finger touches a spot on the
touchpad, it locates the coordinates of that location. Think of it like a map. You enter two
coordinates (one latitude, one longitude) that will lock down a location. The pad sensors then
convert the location from the touchpad to the location on the screen.

Conductance is a less common technology and enables the touchpad to have two surfaces with
small insulators in between them. When you touch the top surface it connects to the bottom
surface, and the location of pressure is determined by sensors and translates the location in a
similar way as with capacitance.

Read more: How Do Touchpads Work? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how-

does_5011106_touchpads-work.html#ixzz1Q6051CnH

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Jun 23, 2011 at 11:02
ovann86
1,276 1 10 18

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