Hello all, I am new to this forum, so please apologise if I am doing anything wrong 
(I read the guide but it might still happen^^)
I want to create a simple door alarm system with a sonar that is strapped onto a servo, scanning the room, and an led that signals anybody coming closer. As long as the distance to the sonar is >30cm I want the servo to rotate and if anything comes to close the Servo should stop and will point at the direction of where the distance was crossed.
As the standard servo "Sweep" code works with a for() function which includes a delay(), I noticed early that this is not feasible, as it is impossible to synchronise the servo and the sonar. With the for() the sonar only scans once every full rotation of the servo. Thus, I created a code that should rotate the servo without a for-function and which is synchronised with the sonar scans. The servo goes to the initial position and then only goes to position 0 and stops. I have spend a lot of time thinking through the code and I cannot see why it does that and only (very quickly) goes to 0. In the Serial monitor, the Servo goes directly from starting position (90) to 0 without any transition. My fear is that this has to do with any characteristics of servos or with the way that the Arduino-Programming-Language executes the loops. But I don't know anything about coding, so I definitely need help here. I was wondering if you could find, why the servo doesn't rotate if distance >30 or if anybody knows an alternative way of rotating the servo
//help variable for switch case
int help = 1;
// Define sonar connections in order to change allocation more quickly later on
#define VCC_PIN 13 // vcc pin is attached to digital pin 13
#define TRIGGER_PIN 12 // sonar trigger pin is attached to digital pin 12
#define ECHO_PIN 11 // sonar echo ground pin is attached to digital pin 11
#define GROUND_PIN 10 // ground pin is attached to digital pin 10
#define MAX_DISTANCE 100 // maximum distance = 100 cm; every input above will be regulated to 100cm
// Variables Sonar
long duration;
int distance;
//Servo
#include <Servo.h>
Servo sweetservo;
int servoposition = 0;
int angleincrease = 1;
// Variables LED
int greenpin = 3;
int bluepin = 5;
int redpin = 6;
void setup() {
Serial. begin(9600); // data transmission rate for serial monitor
//sonar setup
pinMode(ECHO_PIN, INPUT) ; // ECHO PIN receives sound signal
pinMode(TRIGGER_PIN, OUTPUT) ; // TRIG PIN sends sound signal
pinMode(GROUND_PIN, OUTPUT); // tell pin 10 it is going to be an output
pinMode(VCC_PIN, OUTPUT); // tell pin 13 it is going to be an output
digitalWrite(GROUND_PIN,LOW); // tell pin 10 to output LOW (OV, or ground)
digitalWrite(VCC_PIN, HIGH) ; // tell pin 13 to output HIGH (+5V)
//servo setup
sweetservo.attach(9);
sweetservo.write (servoposition);
//led rgb setup
pinMode(greenpin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bluepin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(redpin, OUTPUT);
} //this bracket closes the setups
void loop() {
//data for serial monitor
Serial.print("Distance: ") ; // Prints the distance on the Serial Monitor
Serial.println(distance);
//programm help variable
if (distance > 30) {help = 1;}
else {help = 2;}
switch(help) {
case 1:
digitalWrite(TRIGGER_PIN, LOW);
servoposition = servoposition + angleincrease;
sweetservo.write(servoposition);
if (servoposition = 180) {angleincrease = -1; }
if (servoposition = 0) {angleincrease = 1; }
delay(15);
digitalWrite(TRIGGER_PIN, HIGH);
servoposition = servoposition + angleincrease;
sweetservo.write(servoposition);
if (servoposition = 180) {angleincrease = -1; }
if (servoposition = 0) {angleincrease = 1;}
delay(15);
digitalWrite(TRIGGER_PIN, LOW);
duration = pulseIn(ECHO_PIN, HIGH);
if (distance > MAX_DISTANCE){distance = MAX_DISTANCE ;}
distance = duration*0.034/2;
break;
case 2:
digitalWrite(TRIGGER_PIN, LOW);
delayMicroseconds(3);
digitalWrite(TRIGGER_PIN, HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(12);
digitalWrite(TRIGGER_PIN, LOW);
duration = pulseIn(ECHO_PIN, HIGH);
if (distance > MAX_DISTANCE){distance = MAX_DISTANCE ;}
distance = duration*0.034/2;
break;
} //close switch
//RGB LED
if (distance > 30) {
analogWrite(greenpin, 0);
analogWrite(bluepin, 255);
analogWrite(redpin, 255);
}
else {
analogWrite(greenpin, 255-(8.5*(distance-30))); //this allows a smooth transition from yellow to red -> the value starts at 30*8.5=255 (which causes yellow) and linearly decreases to 0 (which causes red)
analogWrite(bluepin, 255);
analogWrite(redpin, 0);
}
} //this bracket closes the loops
Thank you so much! Just let me know if any important information is still missing!
Thank you so much, now it is working as intended! I can't belive that two "=" just cost me 5 hours of my life haha