Hello again all,
Thanks for all the help yall have givin so far. The project is up and running correctly. I have the basic board built and running on the test bench and fixing to install it in the vehicle. I have it running correctly using the transistors to run the relays. The software side of it has been completely refactored and I wrote a little program in visual studio to monitor everything since all it has are the leds for visual indicators (and it will change the various settings while it is in operation without recompiling and uploading to the arduino). I will upload a schematic, the sketch, and the monitoring program a little later. However, Id like to change it.
The project as it sits now, how 4 leds to show the various states it is in, and two buttons to effect changes, but using the two buttons to make the changes makes it difficult to make those changes (especially with just the leds for indicators). Id like to have multiple buttons but dont want to take up a bunch of the arduino pins, so I was thinking what if I took a series of buttons, hook the first straight to the +5v supply, and run the power in series from there with resistors between each so that when it was pushed each button would show a different voltage at the pin. I could theoretically have 1000+ buttons on a single pin then. However, I ran a quick test on the concept and am running into the problem that the same button doesnt allways show the sasme reading (in fact sometimes I has a difference of 20+). Im thinking that is probably because it depends on how many of the pins are allready outputting part of the current and not leaving me with the full at the supply pin, or am I missing something? as it stands now I could still use it but Id have to leave a pretty wide set of readings for each pin (you know check for say between 651 and 680 for one button and between 681 and 710 for the next), or run a dedicated power supply just for the buttons that way it shouldnt fluctuate.
So basically Im just asking for yalls thoughts, multiple buttons would make it easier to change the settings, and the way I have the program working at the moment it requires both buttons to be pushed at times, is their a way to achieve that with the way Im talking about having all the buttoins go to the same pin?