cycling 4 LEDs at varrying speeds

Ok, just as I expected, it makes zero sense to me.

It will take longer than eight minutes to understand.

I guess what i'm looking for is someone to take what I have... or scrap it all together and help me with cycling 4 leds from 30 cycles per minute to 2000 cycles per minute at the rate of 1 cycle per second.

Lets use what I have as example and move from there. All these links are great but I would much rather understand it at a pace that I can see results with what I have.

I know it requires less work for me and more work for the arduino community, but the "more work" part for you is easy because you understand it, I don't. if it were more work for me I would have to devote more time than I have to doing this
Thanks Guys

Jeff

I would much rather understand it at a pace that I can see results with what I have.

you registered this username at ten to five.
It is now just after seven.
How many of the IDE examples have you worked through?

quite a few, I spent just about my entire weekend trying to come up with something and I know that I'm frustrated to the point that I enlisted the help of the arduino community. I tried playing with quite a few IDE but I can't bridge the gap to applying it to what I have, I always get errors and can't figure out why (which isn't a far stretch).

There are a lot of things that I'm good at but this isn't one of them. Please help me...

Help you to do what?

Understand blink without delay?

Get a clock, a pencil and a sheet of paper.

I want you to boil an egg for three minutes, another for four and another for five.

Oh, and you have the memory of a goldfish.

Wow!! Is a moderator seriously insulting me?
Unless this is your way of trying to teach me something, I would expect more from a moderator.

here it is in easy to understand terms:

start with 4 LEDs set in output pins 2-5.

start by chasing each other one after the other at the rate of XX cycles per minute (cpm).
the chasing increases at the rate of XX cycles per second (cps) until it reaches XX cpm
once that cpm is met then it decreases speed by XX cps until XX cpm are met.
It does this over and over and over and over again.

That's the goal I'm trying to achieve here.

Is it simple to do?

If boiling eggs for 3,4,5 minutes is supposed to mean something explain it to me...

Wow!! Is a moderator seriously insulting me?

Certainly not. I set out the conditions of a well understood (I hope) task, as an analogy of the blink without delay example.
Where's the insult?

Is it simple to do?

Yes.
Will I write it for you?
No.

We operate on the "teach a man to fish" principle.

Oh, and you have the memory of a goldfish.

I get it, "who is this guy that just started an account and expects us to help him?" I'm hoping for some real help, not links to other projects that may work, if I know what and how to extract and apply it here I would but like I said that's not how I learn.

What I'm hoping for is:
"here try this simple code: [code ] [code/ ]
see how the xx changes as you change xx? Try xx and see how xx speeds up and xx slows down, that is xx at it's simplest form"

I understand that analogy but how does it apply?

AWOL:

Is it simple to do?

Yes.
Will I write it for you?
No.

We operate on the "teach a man to fish" principle.

I can see that's how you operate, tossing links at me isn't teaching me anything that google search can teach me. I'm willing to bet that there are others on this forum that see my frustration and will teach me to fish in a manner that I'm willing to learn.

What I'm hoping for is:
"here try this simple code:

As I said earlier, the blink without delay example has about four significant lines.
What about it do have problems with?

Think about the egg boiling task.

And that's what I don't understand, the blink is constant, how do I make it vary? and how do I apply that to what I have. I don't ubnderstand any of it.

By changing the value of "interval"

Yes I can see how I can manually change the interval But I want to do it automatically.

Have your program do it for you. That's about as close to automatic as you're going to get.

 unsigned long currentMillis = millis();
 
  if(currentMillis - previousMillis > interval) {
    // save the last time you blinked the LED 
    previousMillis = currentMillis;   

    // if the LED is off turn it on and vice-versa:
    if (ledState == LOW)
      ledState = HIGH;
    else
      ledState = LOW;

    // set the LED with the ledState of the variable:
    digitalWrite(ledPin, ledState);
  }

Breaks down to:
Look at the time
Is it time to do something?
If so, do something

Where "do something" can include change the amount of time until I next have to do something.

But I want to do it automatically.

You have our permission. If you need help with that, you must define when/under what conditions to change the value, and how much to change it by.

I had to walk away from it right now I'm not at home so I will take a look at it when I get home thanks

The Arduino community isn't here to help you get your project done; we're here to help you understand how to build your project.

If you want to work under the get the project done now, I'll figure out how it actually works later model, then there is a Gigs and Collabaration section where you can get people to write code for you.

You say you understand things better when you can take something, modify it and see what happens. You're welcome to do that with any of the examples and I would encourage you to spend a lot of time doing that with the Blink without Delay example because it is such an important fundamental concept. If you're not willing/interested in putting the time into understanding how it works and figuring out how you can take it and apply it to your own projects, then the aforementioned section would be a better place to get help (at a price) in the form of working code to your specifications.

thanks for your input. it's not like I don't understand it, I just don't know how it would apply to what I'm doing.

I'm not sure if everybody woke up on the wrong side of the bed or if my impression of everyone being on their high horse is just my problem, but a "something for nothing" lecture isn't what I expect when I asked for help.

I'm trying real hard to understand your guys way of thinking, it occurred to me a long time ago that there are many different types of people and they all have different ways of understanding things. I'm sure I'm not the first person to come along that has a hard time understanding what you guys are saying, I'm sure those with thousands of posts have seen this many times my question is, do you run them off with banter such is this? or do you offer assistance? I for one think that a community such is this would be willing to help.

myself, being an expert in other things and also being part of a web forum sort of like this I definitely don't answer questions with, "figure it out yourself we're just here to give you our opinion on how the site is supposed to be ran" attitude.

I'm trying real hard to have an upbeat attitude with the type of replies that I have gotten, but this cloak and dagger, "here's a piece of the puzzle see how it fits" doesn't really sit right with me.

this code is such a small aspect of my project that I was hoping that it wouldn't be this difficult for someone to help me.

Do I have to use const int ledPin = 13 to define the pin OR is there a way to define using pins 2, 3, ,4, and 5 as constants? I am using the code from the Arduino playground, Blink Without Delay which starts with the constant using pin 13.

Is there a way to string multiple pins in the blink without delay code? OR is there a different code altogether that needs to be used in order to get all 4 LEDs working together with a millis (rather than a delay)?

JeffCoalfax:
thanks for your input. it's not like I don't understand it, I just don't know how it would apply to what I'm doing.

Which is something that you learn to figure out by actually playing with the devices. If you can't figure it out, then you truly don't understand it enough; it's that simple.

I'm trying real hard to understand your guys way of thinking, it occurred to me a long time ago that there are many different types of people and they all have different ways of understanding things. I'm sure I'm not the first person to come along that has a hard time understanding what you guys are saying, I'm sure those with thousands of posts have seen this many times my question is, do you run them off with banter such is this? or do you offer assistance? I for one think that a community such is this would be willing to help.

The responses certainly haven't been warm and friendly, but calling it banter is a bit of a stretch.

There are many people who come here and can't understand it after an explanation and that's understandable. The problem arises when there is an apparent lack of effort, which is why you see posts about how quickly you respond with "looked at it, still don't understand it" type responses.

myself, being an expert in other things and also being part of a web forum sort of like this I definitely don't answer questions with, "figure it out yourself we're just here to give you our opinion on how the site is supposed to be ran" attitude.

I'm trying real hard to have an upbeat attitude with the type of replies that I have gotten, but this cloak and dagger, "here's a piece of the puzzle see how it fits" doesn't really sit right with me.

Also a stretch. I think I characterized it pretty clearly when I said that we're not here to help you complete your project, we're here to teach you how to do it yourself. The overall forum philosophy is that people asking for help is akin to the student/teacher paradigm. If you're not comfortable with that type of help, then ignore it and wait to see if anyone with the knowledge you're looking for feels the same way that you do.

this code is such a small aspect of my project that I was hoping that it wouldn't be this difficult for someone to help me.

The difficulty isn't in helping you, it's on agreeing with what we define "help" as.