QinHeng Electronics Foot Pedal

USB Foot Pedal for a PC by QinHeng Electronics - device OS independent (Linux, Windows, etc).

This is a series of foot pedal switches that appear unbranded and are sold on ebay. There is a single pedal version and a three pedial version. The foot switch connects to the computer by a USB interface. The foot pedal is programmed into its own firmware with a character or string that will be sent to the computer via input I/O when depressed, much like a keyboard does when a key is depressed. Consider that it functions like a keyboard which has only a single key.

Programming software included with the device is Windows only even though the devices is marketed as OS independent. An independent developer created a utility using the C programming language and can be executed on Linux.

Programming

Linux and Mac

The programs are using the hidapi library and should work on Linux and OSX. To build on Linux:

sudo apt-get install libhidapi-dev
git clone https://github.com/rgerganov/footswitch.git
cd footswitch
make
sudo make install

To build on OSX:

brew install hidapi
git clone https://github.com/rgerganov/footswitch.git
cd footswitch
make
sudo make install

Obtained the source and compiled.

But first you will need libhidapi-dev or you will get an error "error while loading shared libraries: libhidapi-libusb.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

sudo apt-get install libhidapi-dev

$ ls -l ./by-id|grep e026

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Feb  9 15:12 usb-1a86_e026-event-mouse -> ../event9
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 Feb  9 15:12 usb-1a86_e026-mouse -> ../js0

$ udevadm monitor --udev

monitor will print the received events for:

UDEV - the event which udev sends out after rule processing

udevadm monitor [options]
      Listens to the kernel uevents and events sent out by a udev rule and prints the devpath of the event to the console. It can be used to analyze the event timing, by comparing the timestamps of the kernel uevent and the udev
      event.

      -k, --kernel
          Print the kernel uevents.

      -u, --udev
          Print the udev event after the rule processing.

      -p, --property
          Also print the properties of the event.

      -s, --subsystem-match=string[/string]
          Filter kernel uevents and udev events by subsystem[/devtype]. Only events with a matching subsystem value will pass.

      -t, --tag-match=string
          Filter udev events by tag. Only udev events with a given tag attached will pass.

$ footswitch Usage: footswitch [-123] [-r] [-s <string>] [-S <raw_string>] [-ak <key>] [-m <modifier>] [-b <button>] [-xyw <XYW>]

  -r          - read all pedals
  -1          - program the first pedal
  -2          - program the second pedal (default)
  -3          - program the third pedal
  -s string   - append the specified string
  -S rstring  - append the specified raw string (hex numbers delimited with spaces)
  -a key      - append the specified key
  -k key      - write the specified key
  -m modifier - ctrl|shift|alt|win
  -b button   - mouse_left|mouse_middle|mouse_right
  -x X        - move the mouse cursor horizontally by X pixels
  -y Y        - move the mouse cursor vertically by Y pixels
  -w W        - move the mouse wheel by W

You cannot mix -sSa options with -kmbxyw options for one and the same pedal
$ sudo footswitch -r
[switch 1]: a
[switch 2]: b
[switch 3]: c
$ sudo footswitch -1 w
$ sudo footswitch -2 w
$ sudo footswitch -3 w
$ sudo footswitch -r
[switch 1]: unconfigured
[switch 2]: unconfigured
[switch 3]: unconfigured
$ sudo footswitch -1
$ sudo footswitch -k w
$ wwwwwwwwwwww

Command line utlities for programming PCsensor and Scythe foot switches. There is support for both single pedal devices and three pedal devices. Use the footswitch binary for the following combinations of vendorId:productId:

   0c45:7403
   0c45:7404
   413d:2107

Scythe switches with vendorId:productId=0426:3011 can be programmed with the scythe binary. You can find the vendorId and productId of your device using the lsusb command on Linux.

The same kind of foot switches are used for building the popular VIM Clutch.