How do I check if a button was pressed in a time interval?

Question

I'm doing a project on Arduino that involves traffic lights. If the crossing button is pressed within a 7 second interval, after waitng for 3 seconds(delay3000), I will call a function. If it's not pressed, the loop will resume as normal. I have tried with a for loop but can't seem to get around it. Help?

This is the base code that I have. How could I use a millis() fucntion in this problem? Or are there any possible solutions to this problem?

//Street1-Estado Inicial
 void loop() {

digitalWrite(str1_verd,HIGH);
digitalWrite(str1_ama,LOW);
digitalWrite(str1_verm,LOW);
digitalWrite(str2_verd,LOW);
digitalWrite(str2_ama,LOW);
digitalWrite(str2_verm,HIGH);
digitalWrite(ped1_verd,LOW);
digitalWrite(ped1_verm,HIGH);
digitalWrite(ped2_verd,HIGH);
digitalWrite(ped2_verm,LOW);

 //Verifica se o botao foi pressionado dps de 3s  -------ISSUE
 delay(3000);
  int stateButton1=digitalRead(button_street1);

 for (int t=7;t>=1;t--){  
if(stateButton1 == false){
B_change_1();
    }}   

    delay(1000);    
    digitalWrite(str1_verd,LOW);
digitalWrite(str2_ama,HIGH);
digitalWrite(str1_ama,HIGH);
delay(5000);
digitalWrite(str1_ama,LOW);
digitalWrite(str2_ama,LOW);
digitalWrite(str2_verm,LOW);
digitalWrite(str1_verm,HIGH);
    digitalWrite(ped2_verd,LOW);
digitalWrite(str2_verd,HIGH);
digitalWrite(ped2_verm,HIGH);
digitalWrite(ped1_verm,LOW);
digitalWrite(ped1_verd,HIGH);


//Verifica se o botao foi pressionado dps de 3s --------ISSUE
 delay(3000);
 for (int t=7;t>=1;t--){  
 if(button_street2 == true){
  B_change_2();
    }}
 delay(1000);

digitalWrite(str2_verd,LOW);
digitalWrite(str1_ama,HIGH);
digitalWrite(str2_ama,HIGH);
delay(5000);
loop();
}



//Funcao b_change1
void B_change_1(){
digitalWrite(str1_verd,LOW);
digitalWrite(str2_ama,HIGH);
digitalWrite(str1_ama,HIGH);
delay(5000);
digitalWrite(str1_ama,LOW);
digitalWrite(str2_ama,LOW);
digitalWrite(str2_verm,LOW);
digitalWrite(str1_verm,HIGH);
digitalWrite(str2_verd,HIGH);
digitalWrite(ped2_verm,HIGH);
digitalWrite(ped1_verm,LOW);
digitalWrite(ped1_verd,HIGH);
buzzer_alert();
digitalWrite(ped2_verd,LOW);          
    }
   //Funcao bchange2
   void B_change_2(){
digitalWrite(str2_verd,LOW);
digitalWrite(str1_ama,HIGH);
digitalWrite(str2_ama,HIGH);
delay(5000);
digitalWrite(str2_ama,LOW);
digitalWrite(str1_ama,LOW);
digitalWrite(str1_verm,LOW);
digitalWrite(str2_verm,HIGH);
digitalWrite(str1_verd,HIGH);
digitalWrite(ped1_verm,HIGH);
digitalWrite(ped2_verm,LOW);
digitalWrite(ped2_verd,HIGH);
        }}}

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 18 '23 at 15:14

First of all, you are repeatedly checking button press variables that can't change (though this may be intentional?) :

int stateButton1=digitalRead(button_street1);
for (int t=7; t>=1; t--) {
    if(stateButton1 == false) {      <---- stateButton1 will never change
        B_change_1();
    }
}

and

delay(3000);
for (int t=7;t>=1;t--){
    if(button_street2 == true) {   <---- this isn't set, and won't change
        B_change_2();
    }
}

You need to update stateButton1 by reading from digitalRead in the loop, or at least every time you test it.

To test if a certain amount of time has passed, you could do something similar to

long button_wait_timeout = 7000; // Maximum time to wait for button press
long button_wait_allowed = 3000; // If pressed within three seconds do action
long starttime = millis();
while (digitalRead(button_street1) == LOW && ((millis() - starttime) < button_wait_timeout)) {
    delay(10);  // how man millilseconds before trying the button again
}

if ((millis() - starttime) < button_wait_allowed) {
    do_action_1();
}

You can remove the timeout bits if you want to wait indefinitely.

Thank you so much! I made a couple alterations and it worked on my code! I'm an independent learner so I wasn't sure how to solve this. Cheers! :)) — Ester Cruz, Jan 19 '23 at 00:26

How do I check if a button was pressed in a time interval?

1 Answers1