Hello everyone, my first post here. A group of friends have been building our own Halloween Props for some time, and in the last three years, we've been using Arduinos to build better stuff.
We built a prop we call the "Screaming Skull". We have a two button remote control powering two separate relays to active the Arduino to control the sequence of events. (We connected these relays to Pin 2 and Pin 3 (Example, if I press button A, the arduino sends a command to my sound board to play a door-creaking sound while opening the doors using servos. If I press the A button again, the arduino sends a command to my sound board to play a different door creaking sound and closes the doors. If I press the B button, it checks to see if the doors are opened, if they are not, it opens them and then it launches the skull out via a long air cylinder. Then, when we press the B button again, it retracts the skull, and closes the doors.) So all of that is actually working.
The issue is this: When we use the B button to launch the skull, if we wait for more than a second to press the B button again to bring the skull back, no sound will play when closing the doors. This is not a problem if we just use the A button to open and close the doors no matter how long we wait to press it again to close the doors.
If we launch the skull and then immediately press the B button again to retract the skull, the closing door sound will play.
I don't know what could potentially be causing the closing door sound to not play. I hope I am not confusing anyone and perhaps someone can tell me if my code needs to be changed in some way to prevent that from happening. I am really an amateur when it comes to Arduino programming so maybe I need to restructure my code in some way.
I included a picture I took of all the components except the servos for the doors I took before installing it in our prop.
/* Screaming Skull Code version 3.0 by Luis Melo
This code works with a remote control with two buttons.
Button 1 is used to open and close the doors independently
Button 2 is used to lauch the skull
v1.0 - Initial code
v2.0 - Changed the code to pulse voltage to actuators since low voltage made them weak and did not work
v3.0 - Linear actuators are not really going to work so we have changed them with Servo Motors and the code was
changed to accomodate that
Also, the eyes will now light up immediately upon opening the doors instead of waiting for the second button to be pressed.
*/
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
#include <Adafruit_Soundboard.h>
#include <Servo.h>
#define SFX_TX 12
#define SFX_RX 4
#define SFX_RST 13
SoftwareSerial ss = SoftwareSerial(SFX_TX, SFX_RX);
Adafruit_Soundboard sfx = Adafruit_Soundboard(&ss, NULL, SFX_RST);
Servo leftdoor; // create servo object to control left door
Servo rightdoor; // create servo object to control right door
int ACTIVATE_DOORS = 2; // This pin will be an input
int ACTIVATE_SKULL = 3; // This pin will be an input
int LIGHTEYES = 7;
int LAUNCHSKULL = 8;
int DOORSPEED = 25; // The lower the number, the faster doors close
int door_action = LOW;
int doors_state = 0;
int skull_action = 0;
int skull_state = 0;
int check_doors = 0;
int leftdoorpos = 180; // variable to store servo 1 position
int rightdoorpos = 0; // variable to store servo 2 position
int skulleyestimer;
int millisnow;
int i;
int ii;
void setup(){
Serial.begin(9600); // open the serial port at 9600 baud for debugging
ss.begin(9600); // used to communicate with the sound board
pinMode(ACTIVATE_DOORS, INPUT_PULLUP); // sets the pin to input using the built-in resistor so it is HIGH by default
pinMode(ACTIVATE_SKULL, INPUT_PULLUP); // sets the pin to input using the built-in resistor so it is HIGH by default
pinMode(LIGHTEYES, OUTPUT);
pinMode(LAUNCHSKULL, OUTPUT);
leftdoor.attach(5); // attaches the left door servo on pin 5 to the servo object
rightdoor.attach(6); // attaches the right door servo on pin 6 to the servo object
leftdoor.write(leftdoorpos); // Close the left door if it is opened
rightdoor.write(rightdoorpos); // Close the right door if it is opened
}
// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop(){
door_action = digitalRead(ACTIVATE_DOORS); // See if the doors need to be activated by checking if the button is pushed
if (door_action == LOW){ // If the button is pushed, activate doors
if (skull_state == 0){ // Check that the skull is not out before proceeding. If it is out, do not activate the doors
ActivateDoors(); // Activate Doors
}
}
skull_action = digitalRead(ACTIVATE_SKULL); // Check if the skull needs to be launched
if (skull_action == LOW){
if (skull_state == 1){ //if skull is out, return it
digitalWrite(LAUNCHSKULL, LOW);
delay(4000);
ActivateDoors();
skull_state = 0;
}else{
if (doors_state == 0){
ActivateDoors();
digitalWrite(LIGHTEYES, HIGH);
delay(2000);
}
sfx.playTrack("SCREAM OGG");
digitalWrite(LAUNCHSKULL, HIGH);
digitalWrite(LIGHTEYES, LOW);
delay(2000);
skull_state = 1;
}
}
millisnow = millis();
if (millisnow > skulleyestimer){
digitalWrite(LIGHTEYES, LOW);
}
}
void ActivateDoors(){
if (doors_state == 0){
sfx.playTrack("DOOROPENOGG");
ii = 0;
for (int i = leftdoorpos; i >= rightdoorpos; i -= 1){
ii = ii + 1;
leftdoor.write(i);
rightdoor.write(ii);
Serial.print("Left Door: ");
Serial.print(i);
Serial.print(" - Right Door: ");
Serial.print(ii);
Serial.println();
delay(DOORSPEED);
}
doors_state = 1;
skulleyestimer = millis() + 10000;
digitalWrite(LIGHTEYES, HIGH);
}else{
sfx.playTrack("DOORCLSEOGG");
digitalWrite(LIGHTEYES, LOW);
for (int i = rightdoorpos; i <= leftdoorpos; i += 1){
ii = leftdoorpos - i;
leftdoor.write(i);
rightdoor.write(ii);
Serial.print("Left Door: ");
Serial.print(i);
Serial.print(" - Right Door: ");
Serial.print(ii);
Serial.println();
delay(DOORSPEED);
}
doors_state = 0;
}
}
) but it is already much easier to read than it was originally