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Forum 2005-2010 (read only) General Frequently-Asked Questions
18

Your "if" statements are not doing what you think they're doing.

It appears that you expect the highlighted statements to be done only if the input is high:

while(endTime>millis()) {
val = digitalRead(inputPin);
if (val == HIGH)

digitalWrite(ledPin1, LOW);
digitalWrite(ledPin2, HIGH);
digitalWrite(ledPin3, LOW);
digitalWrite(ledPin4, LOW);
digitalWrite(ledPin5, LOW);
digitalWrite(ledPin6, HIGH);
digitalWrite(ledPin7, LOW);
}

This is not the case. An IF statement only controls ONE statement, not everything that follows it. This is what is happening.

while(endTime>millis()) {
val = digitalRead(inputPin);
if (val == HIGH)
digitalWrite(ledPin1, LOW);

// the rest of these are being done regardless of the input
digitalWrite(ledPin2, HIGH);
digitalWrite(ledPin3, LOW);
digitalWrite(ledPin4, LOW);
digitalWrite(ledPin5, LOW);
digitalWrite(ledPin6, HIGH);
digitalWrite(ledPin7, LOW);
}

If you want to control more statements than just the single statement after the IF condition, you need to use { } curly braces.

while(endTime>millis()) {
val = digitalRead(inputPin);
if (val == HIGH)
{
digitalWrite(ledPin1, LOW);
digitalWrite(ledPin2, HIGH);
digitalWrite(ledPin3, LOW);
digitalWrite(ledPin4, LOW);
digitalWrite(ledPin5, LOW);
digitalWrite(ledPin6, HIGH);
digitalWrite(ledPin7, LOW);
}
}