Timer required

Using Arduino Programming Questions
1

Hi,
I made some projects and finally need some help. Ok, I had a lot of help reading here but never asked a question.

My problem is following: I've build a controller for my automatic blinds. I implemented functions for up, down and stop. basically, there are relays where I trigger the corresponding digital out pin.

I wanted to have a 4th option implemented to drive it only for X seconds (eg. full is 50, so stop after 25).
Of course this works with the delay(25000) however I do not like that as it blocks the whole program and in case I want to stop it in between, it cannot be achieved by any manual inputs.

I experimented with the various timer functions (Simple Timer, Timer etc) but none of them seems to work or I just didn't use them correct.

When looking at Arduino Playground - Timer Library
there is function pulse() which should do exactly what I am looking for.

In my simple code, I am looping through the 4 cases and set the pins 9 & 10 to high and low and if the timer would work, then in case "middle" pin 9 should set to high (which it does) and turn back to low after 2 seconds (which it doesn't). Only after the next case kicks in, it is set correct again.

What am I missing here?

Any comment highly welcome!
thanks,
SJ

#include "Timer.h"
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
Timer t;

String inputComand = "middle";

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(19200);
  pinMode(9, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(10, OUTPUT);
  t.pulse(9, 2000, LOW); //this should change pin 9 for 2 sec from LOW to HIGH)
}

void loop() {
for (int i = 0; i<=3; i++){
  simulationComand(i);
if (inputComand == "up"){
  Serial.println("CASE up");
  driveUp();
}
else if (inputComand =="down"){
  Serial.println("CASE down");
  driveDown();
}
else if (inputComand =="middle"){
  Serial.println("CASE middle");
  Serial.println("------Start timer");
 t.update();
 Serial.println("------timer runs");
  //driveMiddle();
}
else{
  Serial.println("CASE stop");
  stopp();
}
Serial.println("WAIT 6 sec");
delay(6000);
}
}

void driveUp(){
  digitalWrite(9, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(10, LOW);
  return;
 }

 void driveDown(){
  digitalWrite(9, LOW);
  digitalWrite(10, HIGH);
  return;
 }

  void stopp(){
  digitalWrite(9, LOW);
  digitalWrite(10, LOW);
  return;
 }

  void driveMiddle(){
  Serial.println("----------");
  digitalWrite(9, LOW);
  digitalWrite(10, HIGH);
  delay(5000);
  digitalWrite(10, LOW);
  Serial.println("----------");
  return;
 }


 void simulationComand(int counter){
    if (counter == 0){
      inputComand ="up";
      Serial.println("changed to up");}
    else if (counter == 1){
      inputComand ="down";
      Serial.println("changed to down");}
    else if (counter == 2){
      inputComand ="stop";
      Serial.println("changed to stop");}
    else{
      inputComand ="middle";
      Serial.println("changed to middle");}
 }
2

Use the blink without delay paradigm. Start your blinds moving and then on each pass of the loop function see if it is time to stop them.

3

Thank you Delta_G. However I only get it to blink once. How do I reset it?
during startup it is setting the pin to high once and then is it not accessible. This should be triggered by an input anytime.

Cheers,
SJ

4

Then you did something wrong :smiley: Show your new code and we can figure out what you did wrong.

5

obviously I did.
In reality my code is quite different from the example here, I left all the UDP handling etc. out.
I gave Metro a shot and that worked as expected after 15min or so.

Thank you anyway for the help.

SJ