Prototype 5 Wiring Guide
This is a living document, it will be extended over time.
Wiring prototype 5 is very similar to prototype 4, except that now there are 15 sensors (10 if just flex) instead of only 5 potentiometers. The sensors can be wired exactly the same way as the potentiometers, but since there are so many of them, it will use a lot more analog inputs. Because of this, if you are doing splay and want to have a joystick, you will probably have to use a multiplexer.
This is what the wiring diagram for that will look like.
Now this is pretty big and complicated, but there are some ways that we can simplify this wiring setup so there's less work to do in the long run, and making things more modular so they're easier to swap later. (See the 5 pin connector technique section)
Now, there are a number of ways to connect wires to your hall effect sensors. Soldering directly to them is the most tedious but by far produces the best result.
Alternatively, you can try using Dupont connectors instead. They're longer, but they are much thinner than JST connectors so they should help with clearance.
A caution about breadboards: if you use a breadboard in order to split up the 5V and ground from your ESP32 to each of your fingers, make sure that your breadboard is new and hasn't been worn down. I spent two weeks trying to debug what was causing weird noise in my signal only to find out that it was from a bad breadboard. Instead, I prefer to use Dupont daisychaining.
In order to simplify the wiring for proto 5, we can make it so that instead of running 3 wires for every sensor (9 wires per finger), we only have to wire 5 wires to each finger, by combining the power and ground for the sensors for each finger. This is also good for modularity because it means it's easy to switch out finger modules. I do this by terminating all of the sensor inputs to a 5-pin JST on the back of the sensorHousing. This is what the square recession on the back of the housing is there for.
Here is how you would wire this:
But how do I get one power/GND wire from the connector to split to three sensors?
By using this magnificent thing called crimp-daisychaining. Specifically, by doing a triple daisy chain. When crimping your JST connector, instead of fitting only one wire into the crimper, fit three wires in the connector instead. This is much easier to do with thinner wire.
Also, using thinner IDE cable is a really good option for wiring this system. Look at how much more low profile it is.
With this technique, the wiring diagram simplifies to this:
Wiring diagra mmade by minystreem with wires: