Capacitor Value for Capacitive Touch Sensor

Other Hardware Sensors
1

Hello all,
I am experimenting (successfully) with a capacitive sensor I found here:

http://arduino.cc/playground/Code/CapacitiveSensor

I have a quick question: in the tutorial it says "... a capacitor of 1nF is recommended in line with the pin to decouple 50Hz noises."
It just occurred to me that in the U.S. the AC frequency is 60 Hz.
Would a different value capacitor work better?
If so, which value?

Thanks

2

The value is by no means crucial - probably anything from a few hundred pF upto 0.1uF will work fine. Note that this circuit isn't protected from static discharge.

3

MarkT:
The value is by no means crucial - probably anything from a few hundred pF upto 0.1uF will work fine. Note that this circuit isn't protected from static discharge.

Thanks!

BTW I was vaguely aware of the static discharge issue, is it a real problem? How would I protect from it, I cannot ground the touch sensors, can I? That would make the thing not work.

Thanks again