Pins Affecting Other Pins with Hall Effect Sensors and Interrupts

Projects Programming
1

I am using interrupts to read the frequency from six hall effect sensors to measure water flow rate. When I plug one sensor in and simulate flow, I get the frequency output for that sensor but I also get random frequencies being output from the other pins. It essentially works by counting every rising (high-low) condition of the pin within a second. I cannot figure out why this is happening. Maybe I do not know how the interrupts work exactly or maybe it is a hardware issue I am not aware of. Thanks in advance for the help.

Code:

volatile int pin0;
volatile int pin1;
volatile int pin2;
volatile int pin3;
volatile int pin4;
volatile int pin5;
double Calc0;
double Calc1;
double Calc2;
double Calc3;
double Calc4;
double Calc5;
int m0 = 2;
int m1 = 3;
int m2 = 18;
int m3 = 19;
int m4 = 20;
int m5 = 21;
void rpm0()
{
pin0++;
}
void rpm1()
{
pin1++;
}
void rpm2()
{
pin2++;
}
void rpm3()
{
pin3++;
}
void rpm4()
{
pin4++;
}
void rpm5()
{
pin5++;
}
void setup() //
{
pinMode(m0, INPUT);
pinMode(m1, INPUT);
pinMode(m2, INPUT);
pinMode(m3, INPUT);
pinMode(m4, INPUT);
pinMode(m5, INPUT);
Serial.begin(9600);
attachInterrupt(digitalPinToInterrupt(m0), rpm0, RISING);
attachInterrupt(digitalPinToInterrupt(m1), rpm1, RISING);
attachInterrupt(digitalPinToInterrupt(m2), rpm2, RISING);
attachInterrupt(digitalPinToInterrupt(m3), rpm3, RISING);
attachInterrupt(digitalPinToInterrupt(m4), rpm4, RISING);
attachInterrupt(digitalPinToInterrupt(m5), rpm5, RISING);
}
void loop ()
{
pin0 = 0;
pin1 = 0;
pin2 = 0;
pin3 = 0;
pin4 = 0;
pin5 = 0;
sei();
delay (1000);
cli();
Calc0 = pin0;
Calc1 = pin1;
Calc2 = pin2;
Calc3 = pin3;
Calc4 = pin4;
Calc5 = pin5;
Serial.print (Calc0);
Serial.print (" ");
Serial.print (Calc1);
Serial.print (" ");
Serial.print (Calc2);
Serial.print (" ");
Serial.print (Calc3);
Serial.print (" ");
Serial.print (Calc4);
Serial.print (" ");
Serial.print (Calc5);
Serial.print (" ");
Serial.println ("L/hour");
}

Results:
(In this case I had a single sensor plugged into digital pin 20, #4 in my code. Only that pin should have values in the serial monitor, but I get results on pin 3 as well. Most of the time it is just one extra pin but sometimes maybe as much as 3 or 4 other pins.)

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 L/hour
0.00 0.00 0.00 16.00 16.00 0.00 L/hour
0.00 0.00 0.00 231.00 231.00 0.00 L/hour
0.00 0.00 0.00 271.00 271.00 0.00 L/hour
0.00 0.00 0.00 172.00 172.00 0.00 L/hour
0.00 0.00 0.00 111.00 111.00 0.00 L/hour
0.00 0.00 0.00 68.00 68.00 0.00 L/hour
0.00 0.00 0.00 33.00 33.00 0.00 L/hour
0.00 0.00 0.00 6.00 6.00 0.00 L/hour
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 L/hour

Also, I am using a MEGA 2560 with YF-S201 Flow Sensors. The pins I chose are from the MEGA 2560 interrupt pins listed on this page: attachInterrupt() - Arduino Reference

2

Might just be floating inputs. Tie the unused pins to ground for tests.

3

Wow... I feel dumb lol. I grounded all the pins and they stopped kicking out values... Then I plugged all six sensors in and still no duplicated values. Any idea why the pins would mirror their neighboring pins when they are not grounded? Regardless, you fixed my issue. Thanks!

4

Google floating inputs. The long and short of it though is that if you read an input that doesn't have a pull-up or pull-down on it, you can't predict what you'll get. Environmental factors affect it, things like you waving your hand near it, or crosstalk from nearby pins :wink: