Magnetic switch to mechanical counter

Buck Rogers · 2019-10-02 22:58

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.

Mike Green · 2019-10-03 17:00

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.

JonnyMac · 2019-10-03 17:12

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

Magnetic switch to mechanical counter

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