S Francis

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7 years ago.

Ticker v Timeout priority

I have three types of interrupt in some nascent code below: Ticker, Timeout, pushbutton interrupt. I'm using the Timeout to turn off a LCD backlight. I'm using a Ticker to call a function to sample an ADC input periodically.

I have assigned (I think) the lowest priority to the pushbutton. The next lowest priority should be Timeout because I don't want the Timeout to be dealt with if it is going to change the timing between samples. Please could somebody suggest a modification to the code to make Timeout a lower priority than Ticker?

Is there a more elegant way to switch off the backlight after a delay? Or is my approach ok? Thank you.

Turn off LCD backlight after 3 seconds

#include "mbed.h"
#include "TextLCD.h"

TextLCD lcd(p28,p27,p26,p25,p24,p23); // LCD 4bit bus: rs, e, d4, d5, d6, d7
InterruptIn pushbutton(p30);  //Switch pulls up pin 30 when pressed
AnalogIn    signalIn(p20);    //ADC input
Ticker      sampleTicker;       //sets the sample rate 
DigitalOut  backlight(p22);   //Backlight turned on by FET (gate on pin 22)
Timeout     backlight_duration;

float ADCdata;

void backlightOff(void) {
    backlight=0;
}

void backlightOn(void) {
    backlight=1;
    backlight_duration.attach(&backlightOff, 3.0);
}

void sampleInput(void){
    ADCdata = signalIn;
    //Add value to memory buffer
}
    
int main(){
    backlight=0;
    NVIC_SetPriority(EINT3_IRQn, 255);  //Lowest priority setting to "InterruptIn"
    lcd.printf("Hello World!\n");
    pushbutton.rise(&backlightOn);
  
    while(1) {
    // other stuff happening
    }
}

It works! Thank you Zoltan. I will experiment some more. (os-5 issues lots of warning messages about the TestLCD library, although it still compiles.)

Appreciate your help and interest regarding my question.

posted by S Francis 04 Oct 2018

1 Answer

Zoltan Hudak
7 years ago.

Hello Francis,

You might consider using of the EventQueue API. For example as below:

#include "mbed.h"
#include "TextLCD.h"
 
TextLCD     lcd(p28,p27,p26,p25,p24,p23); // LCD 4bit bus: rs, e, d4, d5, d6, d7
InterruptIn pushbutton(p30);  //Switch pulls up pin 30 when pressed
AnalogIn    signalIn(p20);    //ADC input
Ticker      sampleTicker;     //sets the sample rate 
DigitalOut  backlight(p22);   //Backlight turned on by FET (gate on pin 22)
EventQueue  queue(32 * EVENTS_EVENT_SIZE);
Thread      t;

 
float ADCdata;
 
void backlightOff(void) {
    backlight=0;
}
 
void backlightOn(void) {
    backlight=1;
    queue.call_in(3000, backlightOff);
}
 
void sampleInput(void){
    ADCdata = signalIn;
    //Add value to memory buffer
}
    
int main(){
    t.start(callback(&queue, &EventQueue::dispatch_forever));
    backlight=0;
    lcd.printf("Hello World!\n");
    pushbutton.rise(queue.event(backlightOn));
      
    while(1) {
    // other stuff happening
    }
}

Accepted Answer

Zoltan - thank you! And I really appreciate you modifying my code, which gives me a head start. EventQueue is completely unknown to me so I will research how it works on the API link you posted.

I tried compiling your modified code and the online compiler reported back a compiler error 20 at line 9: Error: Identifier "EventQueue" is undefined in "main.cpp", Line: 11, Col: 2

Am I missing a library file to be included at the top of the code?

Thanks again!

posted by S Francis 02 Oct 2018

That's weird. I used the online compiler too with the latest mbed-os version and mbed LPC1768 as target board. However, to avoid importing the LCD library into my project, I commented out lines 2, 4 and 32. The project compiled smoothly with no errors.
No library have to be imported. But make sure that you are using mbed-os 5. There is no EventQueue API available in mbed-os 2!

posted by Zoltan Hudak 02 Oct 2018

Thank you for replying again. My problem is that I'm using the mbed online compiler, unfortunately I have no access to an offline compiler so I'm stuck with os-2. Appreciate your solution though, Zoltan.

posted by S Francis 03 Oct 2018

Hello Francis, You can create an mbed-os 5 project also with the online compiler. When creating a new program, rather select the mbed OS Blinky LED Hello World template than the Blinky LED Hello World one.

posted by Zoltan Hudak 03 Oct 2018

It works! Thank you Zoltan. I will experiment some more. (os-5 issues lots of warning messages about the TestLCD library, although it still compiles.)

Appreciate your help and interest regarding my question.

posted by S Francis 04 Oct 2018