Need some help with control flow for clothes dryer

Projects Programming
1

Hello all,
My dryer broke down a couple of days ago, and rather than try to source a new touch panel, I though perhaps I could make a new control system with an Arduino. It could be smart!

It's a Kenmore elite gas dryer from the early 2000s, which used an electronic touch panel for the controls.

I opened it up and I have been successful getting the motor to spin and the fire on/off. Great! now comes the fun part: the coding!

I made a beer brewing robot before, so I figured this would be a dawdle. It's not. :frowning:

I'm using a DHT11 to sense temperature and moisture. I've got an LCD panel with buttons that I'm not using yet because I can't figure out how to make the menus work. But, that's not my big problem. My big problem is that I'm having trouble figuring out the control flow.

Here's an image of what I'm trying to do:
control flow for dryer.001 by nearlynormal007, on Flickr

My problem is that it never goes into "run mode", and I'm not sure why.

I've been until 2am for the past 3 nights working on it, and I'd like to make some progress, so that it will at least run with automatic temperature and time, before my wife gets home tomorrow (so I will look smart! :smiley: )

arduino_powered_dryer.ino (8.55 KB)

3

Thanks for the feedback, DeltaG.
I should have mentioned my button is push-on/push-off, not a momentary tact switch.

I'll look into enums. I've heard of that structure, but never used it before.

I did actually get my project working by simplifying the heck out of the control flow. Sometimes asking the question is the best way to stimulate your own answer!
It's not perfect, but I think it's a start. Of course, automatic mode is only one mode that I want to use, so I'll still need to add timers and everything else to the flow, but to do that, I still need a menu.

Sadly, when I went to install all the circuitry in a project box, something happened (maybe I fried a mosfet soldering it in) and now the hardware side doesn't work. C'est la vie.

arduino_powered_dryer_simple.ino.ino (6.41 KB)