#Arduino delay alternative serial#
#Arduino delay alternative code#
#Arduino delay alternative free#

This exploits the discrete nature of processor cycles in combination with knowing the current system clock. The Low-Tech, Active DelayĪ completely serviceable, functional, and reasonably accurate delay feature can be implemented in a bare-metal environment using nothing more than a humble while() loop. Our focus will be on the Timer module instead, the way its delay() function is implemented, as well as the two alternate approaches.

#Arduino delay alternative free#

Feel free to have a look at it if you need a refresher, though.

We won’t cover the GPIO module here again, as the used GPIO functions in this example were already explained in the first article in the series. This example defines a few presets for different boards, with here the ‘Blue Pill’ (STM32F103C8) version used.

#Arduino delay alternative code#

The code example as implemented using my Nodate framework thus becomes: Whenever we return from this blocking delay function, we toggle the GPIO_ODR bit, which causes the LED that is connected on that pin to be lit or not. In the case of the Blinky example, we remove the active polling of the GPIO_IDR that was used to read the button input, instead relying on the delay function that is added. In the Pushy example, the processor core would constantly query the GPIO peripheral’s incoming data register (GPIO_IDR) and write into the outgoing data register (GPIO_ODR) depending on those input values. Meanwhile the slower APB connects peripherals that are fine with less bandwidth and lower speeds, which includes the I2C, timers, USARTs and SPI peripherals. AHB connects the core to all peripherals that need the low latency and speed, such as RAM, ROM, GPIO banks and display controllers. This core is connected via a variety of AMBA (Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture) buses, with AHB being the fast bus. In Arm MCU architectures, generally the same Cortex-M processor core is used within the same family of MCUs by a manufacturer such as ST Microelectronics (‘ST’). In this article we’ll take a look at all three approaches, along with their advantages and disadvantages. In the latter two cases we also have to use interrupts. On an STM32 MCU, we get to choose between essentially an active delay ( while loop), one implemented using the SysTick timer and using one of the peripheral timers. The reason for this is that there are many ways to implement a delay function on a microcontroller (MCU), each of which comes with their own advantages and disadvantages. The reason for this is that there’s actually quite a story behind a simple call to delay() or its equivalent. This is actually a lot more complicated than the ‘ Pushy‘ example which we looked at in the first installment of this series. Serial.One of the very first examples for an MCU or SoC usually involves the famous ‘ Blinky‘ example, where an LED is pulsed on and off with a fixed delay. Now the code in the if statement is executed. Therefore, currentTime (1000) – previousTime (0) = 1000, which IS equal to eventInterval (1000). In the next example, 1000 milliseconds have passed. We will continue through the loop over and over again until the if statement is true, which will happen after 1 second, or 1000 milliseconds.

Therefore, currentTime (200) – previousTime (0) = 200, which is still NOT >= eventInterval (1000). Next, let’s say 200 milliseconds have passed so far. void setup() brackets is executed, and we go back the the beginning of the loop.

Then in the loop we’re going to use the Serial.println (println = print line) function to print the value of millis.

#Arduino delay alternative serial#

In the Arduino IDE we’re going to begin in the setup section and use this Serial.begin function to enable serial communication. Let’s write a sketch that prints the value of millis to the serial monitor window. The easiest way to review this function is to look at it in a simple sketch. If you’ve watched the previous lessons, we’ve described the basics of millis function in general ( part 1), we’ve talked about tight loops and blocking code ( part 2), and we’ve discussed some issues that arise when using the delay function ( part 3 and part 4). Are you trying to build a project using Arduino and you need to program repetitive timed events?Īre you looking for alternatives to the delay() function to achieve this?