Quick prototype. I wanted to test whether an ICM7555 could be used to make a capacitive sensor by connecting an aluminum foil square as the C side of an astable configured 555 and how much of a difference in frequency would I get out of it.

Setup

Timer configured as the “alternate astable configuration” (datasheet) and the following R/C values. “Capacitor” is protected from direct contact by a piece of paper. Ballpark calculation should give me around 1nF capacitance. (It didn’t, by at least an order of magnitude, see results)

Part Description
R1 330Ω Resistor
R2 680Ω Resistor
C A 225mm by 225mm paper-covered aluminium foil square

Results

Frequency/edges measurements with a logic analyzer were as follows.

Description Frequency Edges @10ms Delta vs rest
At rest on the ground 1025kHz 20516 0%
Touching with a hand 944kHz 18880 -7.97%
Foot (with sock) 985kHz 19714 -3.91%
Boot 1014kHz 20274 -1.18%

The difference between “at rest” and having a hand or a feet near touching it is clearly noticeable but it seems I overestimated the capacitance of the plaque and the oscillator is running around the circuit frequency limit of 1MHz so adding an additional capacitance to move the circuit into the “linear” zone and maybe also using a total resistance equivalence of ~100k instead of 1k would yield better delta figures, making detection more reliable.

As shown on the datasheet:

Frequency against RC values

For the frequency values we had, the capacitor must lie around the 100pF value. Changing R to the 100k or 1M range would give a more spread frequency response of frequency as a function of Capacitance.