Help with a capacitive touch panel

[Boudi AlSayed]

Hello, I'm totally new to electronics, I have a touch pad which is made originally for a Guitar hero controller(Slider).
I want to hook the touch panel with a USB Gamepad buttons, the touch panel have 5 buttons, I'm totally confused and can't figure out how the circuit board even work, it has a touch capacitive sensor (IC) and other few things I don't know about these stuff... I'll post an image if you can tell me just how should I use it with the USB gamepad...

Thats it... hope someone could help! Thanks a lot

 

[BobK]

The markings of a connector with SCL, SDA, GND, and VDD indicate that it talks via the I2C serial protocol. If this is the case, there is no spot that will indicate the state of each button, these are sent as messages that must be interpreted by a microcontroller.

Edit: BTW the 5 pads near the chip are the programming connector for a PIC microcontroller, so I would bet that that is what the chip is. If you had the knowledge, you could reprogram the microcontroller.

Bob

 

[Boudi AlSayed]

The markings of a connector with SCL, SDA, GND, and VDD indicate that it talks via the I2C serial protocol. If this is the case, there is no spot that will indicate the state of each button, these are sent as messages that must be interpreted by a microcontroller.

Edit: BTW the 5 pads near the chip are the programming connector for a PIC microcontroller, so I would bet that that is what the chip is. If you had the knowledge, you could reprogram the microcontroller.

Bob

Well! Thanks for the info! I knew there were something strange about that chip... anyway what do I need to reprogram that PIC? I'm a software developer, I think it would not be so hard for me to understand electronics code... but what tools do I need? Software? Please advice me... I'm trying google now, but waiting your advice. THANKS AGAIN
EDIT : what possibility could I make it work with my gamepad after programming it? Could it output normal button pushes as a USB Gampad??

 

[BobK]

What you need is a programmer (hardware that is, not one like yourself). I would recommend the PICKIT 2 or 3 from Microchip. The software tools are free. MPLABX is the development environment, which comes with assembler and linker. Then there are the C compilers, XC8 16, OR 32 depending on the chip family. Non-optimizing ones are free.

http://www.microchip.com/

It would help if you could read the markings on the chip so we can determine which one it is.

If you reprogram it you could make a simple output signal for each button, which you could then connect to the gamepad in place of it's buttons.

It is not a simple project, but, since you already have programming skills, it is much easier for you than it would be for a rank beginner.

Bob