I looked at replacing the manual test switch on the FSR circuit board (the switch that forces the interrupt on the mote to go low) with an on-off-momentary switch that would also replace the power switch. I found that this would not work because Vout (from the comparator) is not the same signal as Vcc — the on-off-mom switches I found require the on/momentary signals to be the same. Geb asked why I was bothering, and I said that it would be nice to combine the two switches because the SPDT momentary switch we have now is the largest footprint on the board (other than the battery). We found that we could use a smaller SPST momentary switch (this one) if we connected it between V+ on the comparator and ground — where the old switch simply forced Vout to ground, the new switch forced the comparison V+ to certainly be less than V-, implying Vout goes to ground. I also replaced the 2 FSR pins with a 4-circuit ZIF connector (more information in ‘FSR distributor‘ post; 2-circuit connectors have a minimum order of 10,000 everywhere). These changes required a reconfiguration of board layout, and I found that the changes made to the switch were very difficult (if not impossible?) to lay out. So for now, I’ve decided to keep the larger switch and relayout the board with the ZIF connector for the sake of ease. We do have the smaller switches on order and if we have time we should try again to make a layout with this switch. It may require a two sided board.
EDIT: Lies! I’ve got the circuit board laid out with the new switch and ZIF connector…. figured it out. The Eagle files are on the southwest computer