Characterizing performance of analogRead()

Using Arduino Project Guidance
#1

I’m trying to write a program to measure the intensity of an LED using a photoresistor and log that data to an SD card. I’d like to know if analogRead() is performing well enough to be appropriate for such a task (I need very precise and quick measurements), but I’m not sure how to measure this. Any help or hints would be greatly appreciated!

Here’s the code I’ve put together - a few parts of it probably don’t make sense to use for this situation; I’m very new to Arduino and coding in general, and the code is a work in progress.

#include <SD.h>
const int chipSelect = 53;
int LED = 12;  //LED attached to defined pin
int brightness = 0;  //how bright the LED is
int fadeAmount = 5;  //how many points to fade the LED by per cycle
int PR = A0;  //photoresistor is connected to defined pin
int val = 0;  //value used to store the value coming from the sensor

void setup() {
  {
    //declare defined pin to be an output:
    pinMode(LED, OUTPUT);
    Serial.begin(9600);  //send data to computer at 9600 bits/second
  }
  {
    Serial.print("Initializing SD card...");
    //make sure the default chip select pin is set to output
    pinMode(53, OUTPUT);
    
    //see if the card is present and can be initilized:
    if (!SD.begin(chipSelect)) {
     Serial.println("Card failed or not present");
    //dont do anything else:
   return;
    }
   Serial.println("Card initialized!");
  }
  //Write Log File Header
  File logFile = SD.open("LOG.txt", FILE_WRITE);
  if(logFile)
  {
    logFile.println(", "); //Just a leading blank line, in case there was previous data
    String header = "ID, Photoresistor";
    logFile.println(header);
    logFile.close();
    Serial.println(header);
  }
  else
  {
    Serial.println("Couldn't open log file");
  }
}

void loop() 
{
  {
    val = analogRead(PR);  //read input value from photoresistor and store it
    Serial.println(val);  //print the value from photoresistor to serial port
    delay(20);
  }
  {
    //set the brightness of the defined LED pin
    analogWrite(LED, brightness);
  
    //change the brightness for the next loop:
    brightness = brightness + fadeAmount;
  
    //reverse the direction of the fading at ends of fade loop:
    if (brightness == 0 || brightness == 255) {
      fadeAmount = -fadeAmount ;
    }
    //wait for defined milliseconds to see the dimming effect:
    delay(20);
  }
    // make a string for assembling the data to log:
  String dataString = "";

  // read three sensors and append to the string:
  for (int analogPin = 0; analogPin < 1; analogPin++) {
    int sensor = analogRead(analogPin);
    dataString += String(sensor);
  }

  // open the file. note that only one file can be open at a time,
  // so you have to close this one before opening another.
  File dataFile = SD.open("datalog.txt", FILE_WRITE);

  // if the file is available, write to it:
  if (dataFile) {
    dataFile.println(dataString);
    dataFile.close();
    // print to the serial port too:
    Serial.println(dataString);
  }  
  // if the file isn't open, pop up an error:
  else {
    Serial.println("error opening datalog.txt");
  }
}
#2

What kind of photoresistor? They are very slow and tend to respond to yellow-green light (IIRC) If you use them on a red LED, you migh not get much response.

#3

Oh gosh, that's a pretty important question that I don't know the answer to. Sorry, I'm really, really new to electronics. For what it's worth, I'm using a yellow LED.

#4 
    val = analogRead(PR);  //read input value from photoresistor and store it
    Serial.println(val);  //print the value from photoresistor to serial port
    delay(20);

If you want quick measurements the delay won't help. Nor will the Serial print at 9600 baud. Also SD card writing can be slow.

Please note that in versions of the IDE up to and including 1.0.3, the String library has bugs as discussed here and here.

In particular, the dynamic memory allocation used by the String class may fail and cause random crashes.

I recommend reworking your code to manage without String. Use C-style strings instead (strcpy, strcat, strcmp, etc.), as described here for example.

Alternatively, install the fix described here: Fixing String Crashes

Preferably upgrade your IDE to version 1.0.4 or above at: http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

Doing an analogRead on its own, other things being equal, should take 104 µS, so you can do 9,615 per second.

#5

Thanks a ton, that's a lot of help!

#6