A Diagnostic Tool for Arduino Software

[rgsparber]

There are times when Arduino software must be debugged and you are not connected to a Software Development Environment. It then becomes near impossible to know what is going on. In these cases, it is handy to be able to turn on a diagnostic mode and see exactly where you are in the code plus specific pieces of data at these times. Here is one way to do it.

If you are interested, please see

http://rick.sparber.org/DTSW.pdf


Your comments are welcome. All of us are smarter than any one of us.


Thanks,

Rick

[Ralphxyz]

Nice, thank you for posting.

Ralph

[rgsparber]

Do you program Arduinos?

[Ralphxyz]

Yes, also also micro processor programing in C, but never really proficient just a hobby.

I like having the embedded analytics I can see where that could be very helpful.

Thanks again for posting.

Ralph

[Christophe Mineau]

Hi Rick,
Nice work, it can be useful for synchronus applications looping forever.
Here you used an LCD display, but in some cases you may have to use even more rustic interface like the status led D13 or a piezzo buzzer to provide the user with some basic status information (remember how a computer beeps its diags when the video adapter is down)

One comment, you didn't say much about your debounce routine ?
typo page 4/1st line : I guess you mean setup() instead of startup()

Other comment, you might receive it as well from others, I know that the programming style can be very personal, but the Arduino allows you to program using C++/C, so it is quite odd that you use label: Goto Label for your loops .
It would have been more readable if you had used :
while (DebouncedRead(PABPin) == Pushed);

Notice that in order to avoid such loops, you could have used interrupts, detecting edges in both directions, but honestly, it's always preferable to use a polling like you did. (Using interrupts, the de-bouncing is crucial and can be annoying)

Well done, keep posting !
Christophe

[DIYer]

Thanks Rick! We've added your Arduino Diagnostic Tool to our Electronics category, as well as to your builder page: Rick's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Arduino Diagnostic Tool by Rick Sparber

tags: arduino