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[on:]

Hi all -
I'm trying to build a small temperature monitor, with an UnoR3 and 5 DHT11 temperature/humidity sensors. These are 3-wire digital thingies (5V, GND, data). I'd like to have the code sort-of generic, but can't figure out how to set it up properly.

The library uses something like this (simplified from original example):

Code:

#include "DHT.h"
#define DHTPIN 2     // what pin we're connected to
#define DHTTYPE DHT11   // DHT 11
DHT dht(DHTPIN, DHTTYPE);

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  dht.begin();
}

void loop() {
  float h = dht.readHumidity();
  float t = dht.readTemperature();
  Serial.print("Humidity: ");
  Serial.print(h);
  Serial.print(" %\t");
  Serial.print("Temperature: ");
  Serial.print(t);
  Serial.println(" *C");
}

DHT is a class for the sensor and defined in the DHT library.
dht(pin,type) is a constructor for the sensor and defined in the DHT library.

This good for one sensor, but now I'd like to do the same for 3 or 4 or 5...
Something like this:

Code:

const int MaxSensors = 5;
DHT myDHT[MaxSensors]; // an array[0..4] of sensors

void setup() {
  for (int n=0; n<MaxSensors-1; n++) {
    myDHT[n] = dht(n, 11); // define a sensor at pin 'n' with sensor type DHT11
  }
}

void loop(){
  // etc.
}

However, I can't get this to work. So ...

Given a given class DHT with a constructor dht(pin, type), how do I create an array of sensors with pins 0,1,2,3,4 and type 'whatever' in Arduino ?

Any help is seriously appreciated.

/O.

[Reply #1 on:]

Given a given class DHT with a constructor dht(pin, type), how do I create an array of sensors with pins 0,1,2,3,4 and type 'whatever' in Arduino ?

How about a link to this DHT library? The one on the playground does not have a class called DHT (it's called dht, and, yes, case matters) nor does it have a two argument constructor.

Edit: You could always add a no-argument constructor and methods to set the pin and type.

[Reply #2 on:]

You could always try this:

Code:

DHT myDHT[MaxSensors] = {DHT(0, 11),DHT(1, 11),DHT(2, 11),DHT(3, 11),DHT(4, 11)};

EDIT: Sorry, those should have been in Capitals, fixed now.

[Reply #3 on:]

I used the library from Adafruit, on github, see this link https://github.com/adafruit/DHT-sensor-library.
It has a class DHT, not dht. The example there uses dht as the instance, not DHT:

Code:

DHT dht(pin, type);

I've come up with the following, which compiles. Not sure if this is the right way to go, or if it's garbage.

Code:

#include <Arduino.h>
#include <DHT.h>

const int maxDHT = 5;
DHT* myDHT[maxDHT]; // array of 5 pointers to DHTs

void setup(){
  Serial.begin(9600);
  for (int i=0; i<(maxDHT-1); i++) {
    Serial.print(i), Serial.print("\n");
    DHT aDHT(i, 11); //define a new DHT at pin i with type 11;
    myDHT[i]=&aDHT; // store pointer to aDHT in array myDHT at index i
  };
};

void loop(){
  // do some stuff with it here
};

[Reply #4 on:]

Given a given class DHT with a constructor dht(pin, type), how do I create an array of sensors with pins 0,1,2,3,4 and type 'whatever' in Arduino ?

The simplest approach I can see is to declare an array of pointer-to-dhc and 'new' each dht object in setup.

Code:

int pins[MaxSensors] = { 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 };
DHT *myDHT[MaxSensors];

Code:

for (int n=0; n<MaxSensors; n++)
{
    myDHT[n] = new DHT(pins[n], 11); // define a sensor at pin 'n' with sensor type DHT11
}

Code:

for (int n=0; n<MaxSensors; n++)
{
  float h = myDHT[n]->readHumidity();
  float t = myDHT[n]->readTemperature();
}

ETA: If the DHT class has a copy constructor, I think you could also do:

Code:

DHT myDHT[MaxSensors] = {
    DHT(3, 11),
    DHT(4, 11),
    DHT(5, 11),
    DHT(6, 11),
    DHT(7, 11)
};

[Reply #5 on:]

I've come up with the following, which compiles. Not sure if this is the right way to go, or if it's garbage.

Code:

  Serial.begin(9600);
  for (int i=0; i<(maxDHT-1); i++) {
    Serial.print(i), Serial.print("\n");
    DHT aDHT(i, 11); //define a new DHT at pin i with type 11;
    myDHT[i]=&aDHT; // store pointer to aDHT in array myDHT at index i
  };

The problem with that code is that the aDHT instances go out of scope at the end of the for loop and so the array of pointers will become invalid.

[Reply #6 on:]

Hmmm -- I think I see where you got your Karma from.
It looks like it compiles without errors, now I have this, which compiles without errors:

Code:

#include <Arduino.h>
#include <DHT.h>

const int maxDHT = 5;
DHT* myDHT[maxDHT]; // array of 5 pointers to DHTs
 // DHT aDHT(1,11); // dummy DHT with pin 1 and Type 11
float temp, humid;

void setup(){
  Serial.begin(9600);
  for (int i=0; i<(maxDHT-1); i++) {
    Serial.print(i), Serial.print("\n");
    myDHT[i] = new DHT(i, 11); //define a new DHT at pin 11;
  };
};

void loop(){
  for (int i=0; i<(maxDHT-1); i++) {
    temp=myDHT[i]->readTemperature();
    humid=myDHT[i]->readHumidity();
    delay(2500);
    Serial.print(i), Serial.print(", T = "); Serial.print(temp); Serial.print("\n");
    Serial.print(i), Serial.print(", H = "); Serial.print(humid); Serial.print("\n");
  };
};

[Reply #7 on:]

Addendum -

So... contrary to many posts on the web, 'new' *does* exist in avr-gcc (under Arduino-1.0.1 in my case). That makes things a lot easier. It seems the latest version does indeed compile, and code size seems to scale with maxDHT:

maxDHT	Bytes
5	6066
6	6068
7	6070
8	6072
n	6056+2*n

Thanks for all your help, people!

O.

[Reply #8 on:]

So... contrary to many posts on the web, 'new' *does* exist

For a long time (prior to IDE version 1.0 I suspect), it didn't - hence the confusion caused by older discussions of the topic.

[Reply #9 on:]

Why are you using 'i<(maxDHT-1)' everywhere? If maxDHT is the number of DHTs then the condition should be 'i < maxDHT'. If it isn't, then perhaps you should be defining some other constant which is.