scamilleri:
My appoligies if I have broken any rules of etiquette in my posting.
It's not about manners. Without code tags, some code gets interpreted by HTML as emojies. With code tags the code stays in a box that the reader can pull the lower right corner to resize. It keeps the code from taking over the post page.
Autoformatting your code and using whitespace (some people write brick-code) makes it easier by FAR to read.
If you desire fewer people to give you help, make the job of seeing what you have done into some kind of time-wasting challenge. You get extra credit for trivializing efforts to help you.
What I am trying to do is create a program that when a button is pushed it toggles on a relay for 1 hour. If the button is pushed before the 1 hour passes it toggles the relay and resets the 1 hour timer. I have a work van with a 1000 watt inverter that I use to charge my cordless tools. I would like to be able to hit the button to turn on the inverter for 1 hour which would allow the batteries to charge and then shut off the inverter.
Thanks again.
The Arduino delay() function holds code execution until it is done. You can't read a pin for the entire time. There are several such execution-blocking functions (pulseIn(), readUntil,...) to avoid when you want your sketch to do more than one thing at a time like wait and watch a button.
See how well you understand this code below. Take your time, you need a solid understanding. This code is short and does little just so there's less to understand.
This sketch has no button. Adding a button to this fast code means a short lesson in debouncing, otherwise 1 press can look like 6. Thing is that with this code you can add buttons and literally dozens of things and it still works.
And a clue about that 1 hour: the blinkInterval for this example is 1000 milliseconds, it's just a number in the code.
This may get you started on that path:
/*
Blink without Delay --- cleaned up a bit, 4/5/2020
Turns on and off a light emitting diode (LED) connected to a digital pin,
without using the delay() function. This means that other code can run at the
same time without being interrupted by the LED code.
The circuit:
- Use the onboard LED.
- Note: Most Arduinos have an on-board LED you can control. On the UNO, MEGA
and ZERO it is attached to digital pin 13, on MKR1000 on pin 6. LED_BUILTIN
is set to the correct LED pin independent of which board is used.
If you want to know what pin the on-board LED is connected to on your
Arduino model, check the Technical Specs of your board at:
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Products
created 2005
by David A. Mellis
modified 8 Feb 2010
by Paul Stoffregen
modified 11 Nov 2013
by Scott Fitzgerald
modified 9 Jan 2017
by Arturo Guadalupi
This example code is in the public domain.
http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/BlinkWithoutDelay
*/
// this code has been cleaned up more to remove bad examples 4/5/2020
// constants won't change. Used here to set a pin number:
const byte ledPin = LED_BUILTIN;// the number of the LED pin
// Variables will change:
byte ledState = LOW; // ledState used to set the LED
// Generally, you should use "unsigned long" for variables that hold time
// The value will quickly become too large for an int to store
unsigned long startBlinkInterval = 0; // will store last time LED was updated
// constants won't change:
const unsigned long blinkInterval = 1000; // interval at which to blink (milliseconds)
void setup() {
// set the digital pin as output:
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
}
void loop() {
// here is where you'd put code that needs to be running all the time.
// check to see if it's time to blink the LED; that is, if the difference
// between the current time and last time you blinked the LED is bigger than
// the interval at which you want to blink the LED.
if (millis() - startBlinkInterval >= blinkInterval) {
startBlinkInterval += blinkInterval;
// if the LED is off turn it on and vice-versa:
if (ledState == LOW) {
ledState = HIGH;
} else {
ledState = LOW;
}
digitalWrite(ledPin, ledState);
}
}