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Magnetic switch to mechanical counter — Parallax Forums

Magnetic switch to mechanical counter

Hello!
I have two mechanical counters here, one uses 24v to click its armature to increment its displayed count. And the uses 12v to do the same thing. And also a collection of NC (Normally Closed) reed switches, and a collection of NO (Normally Open) switches as well. I'm brainstorming for a simple program that would wait for the switch to either open in the case of NC ones, or conversely close for the NO ones, and then cause a connected solid state relay to have one of the two, simply count.

It's the glue in the form of a BASIC program that has me peeved.
---
Mascot away.

Comments

  • There are all sorts of simple examples in "What's a Microcontroller?" for testing switches and activating something (like a solid state relay) when the switch is opened or closed or whatever. How about making up a prose description of what you want your gadget to do? You could do a flowchart if you want, but that's more work to post. Once you have a description that you're happy with, it's easy to translate it to Basic.
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 8,912
    edited 2019-10-03 23:16
    With XOR (^) you can determine which inputs changed, irrespective of how they changed. For example, let's say that IN0 and IN1 are normally open and IN2 and IN3 are normally closed. All inputs have pull-downs, and the other side of the switch connects to 5v.

    This bit of code samples the inputs and waits for a change. By using XOR we can find the pins that changed state -- a "1" bit in delta tells us the corresponding input changed. By looking at the actual value in the last scan, we can respond to that input as required.
    ' {$STAMP BS2}
    ' {$PBASIC 2.5}
    
    oldState        VAR     Nib
    newState        VAR     Nib
    delta           VAR     Nib
    
    
    Setup:
      DIRA = %0000                                  ' all inputs
      oldState = INA
    
    Main:
      PAUSE 25
      newState = INA
      IF newState = oldState THEN Main
    
    Change_Detected:
      delta = newState ^ oldState
      oldState = newState
    
    Process_Input0:
      IF delta.BIT0 = 1 THEN
        IF newState.BIT0 = 1 THEN                   ' normally-open input
          ' active
        ELSE
          ' released
        ENDIF
      ENDIF
    
    Process_Input1:
      IF delta.BIT1 = 1 THEN
        IF newState.BIT1 = 1 THEN                   ' normally-open input
          ' active
        ELSE
          ' released
        ENDIF
      ENDIF
    
    Process_Input2:
      IF delta.BIT2 = 1 THEN
        IF newState.BIT2 = 0 THEN                   ' normally-closed input
          ' active
        ELSE
          ' released
        ENDIF
      ENDIF
    
    Process_Input3:
      IF delta.BIT3 = 1 THEN
        IF newState.BIT3 = 0 THEN                   ' normally-closed input
          ' active
        ELSE
          ' released
        ENDIF
      ENDIF
    
    Clean_Up:
      GOTO Main
    
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