I salvaged a Synaptics T1321B touchpad from an old laptop and want to repurpose it for a custom project.
Goal is to reverse engineer the interface and extract position/gesture data so I can use it as a control input (thinking along the lines of motor control or some kind of human-machine interface).
From what I understand, these typically use I²C/SMBus, but documentation seems basically nonexistent.
Current plan:
- Identify pinout and power requirements
- Probe communication lines (logic analyzer)
- Try interfacing with a microcontroller (STM32/Arduino)
- Decode packets for position data
Main questions:
- Has anyone worked with Synaptics touch controllers like this before?
- Any known initialization sequences or common protocols?
- Is it even worth the effort vs using a standard capacitive touch IC?
Not expecting it to be easy, just want to know if I’m heading into a dead end or something workable.