Start/Stop Arduino

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

This is a very basic question,

Other than removing the power, is there a way to stop the Arduino from processing i.e. halting the microprocessor?

Thanks,
John

2

Yes, you can put it into a sleep mode:

http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1291420085

--
The QuadRAM shield: add 512 kilobytes of external RAM to your Arduino Mega/Mega2560

3

Sure, you can put it in power down sleep mode, use a hardware interrupt to wake it up.

Err, yeah, what he said!

4

Thanks.

I should have been more specific; is there a way put it to sleep from the IDE? In the micro I switched from, one could stop and restart the processor from the IDE.

While I'm at it; is there a way to clear the serial monitor window?
Is there a limit to how many lines the window will accommodate?
Is there a way to capture the contents of the serial monitor window in a text file?

John

5

is there a way put it to sleep from the IDE?

No, the IDE can only send serial data, it cannot control the running state.

is there a way to clear the serial monitor window?

No, generally I just close it and open it again (though that resets the Arduino too)

Is there a limit to how many lines the window will accommodate?

Don't know the answer to that one.

Is there a way to capture the contents of the serial monitor window in a text file?

Not easily -- you can select all the text as you would select text in a normal window, then paste it into a text editor (Notepad, for example)

You can get more powerful terminal emulator programs (BrayTerm, TeraTerm) which do allow you to clear the screen, log data to a file, etc.

--
The Flexible MIDI Shield: MIDI IN/OUT, stacking headers, your choice of I/O pins

6

is there a way put it to sleep from the IDE

Not directly. You can send through serial a command that does just that, like
if (command is SLEEP)
go_to_sleep

is there a way to clear the serial monitor window?

Instead of the serial monitor coming with the IDE, you can use a terminal app which has this sort of capability, like CoolTerm, for example.

7

Thanks; those are all good replies and I'll check them out.

John-

8

I like RS232MON from EVMSoft.com as a test tool.
Can select data format (hex,text/ascii, bin, dec, float)
on both Rx & Tx, and on Tx can send repeating a file, or bursts of characters, in 1mS and up periods.

I've been using it a lot to test out a Tx card that spits out RS232 at 115,200 to see if the correct stuff was coming out,
and sending that same data into an Rx card to see if it was reacting properly.

9

Zarkoff:
...
Is there a way to capture the contents of the serial monitor window in a text file?
...

You can use another program instead of the serial monitor. If I have to save things in a text file I use putty.

best regards
Andreas