Button to optocoupler to fire camera 4 times

Question

Ok, this is my first project where I've not had @forsvunnet close by to help.

I've got a camera connected to an optocoupler, that just fires HIGH then LOW.

I can't get a button working with it, so when I push a button, it fires opto 3 times.

This is my sketch.

 // Pin 13 has an LED connected on most Arduino boards.
// give it a name:
int opto = 12;
int buttonInput = 2;     // the number of the pushbutton pin
int buttonState = 0;         // variable for reading the pushbutton status

// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup()
{
// initialize the digital pin as an output.m
pinMode(opto, OUTPUT);
pinMode(buttonInput, INPUT);
digitalWrite(buttonInput, LOW);}

// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop()
{
  buttonState = digitalRead(buttonInput);
  if (buttonState == HIGH) {
      digitalWrite(opto, HIGH);
      delay(1000);               // wait for a second
      digitalWrite(opto, LOW);
      delay(1000);               // wait for a second
      digitalWrite(opto, HIGH);
      delay(1000);               // wait for a second
      digitalWrite(opto, LOW);
  } else {

  }

}

Anyone point me in the right direction? It's driving me mad.

Answer 1

First of all, the loop (if it worked well) would only fire twice. It should only fire when you turn it on/off in a cycle (unless it's a rising/falling edge circuit (i.e. a pull down button/a falling edge interrupt), but I won't get into that). In your code you toggle it twice. The third one? I suspect that your camera only fires when it's given a low signal. This means that, when you set it to low in setup(), it takes a photo. To fix this, switch all the HIGHs and the LOWs for the opto pin.

This is the code which I think should work for you:

// Pin 13 has an LED connected on most Arduino boards.
// give it a name:
int opto = 12;
int buttonInput = 2;     // the number of the pushbutton pin
int buttonState = 0;         // variable for reading the pushbutton status

// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup()
{
// initialize the digital pin as an output.m
pinMode(opto, OUTPUT);
pinMode(buttonInput, INPUT);
digitalWrite(buttonInput, HIGH);}

// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop()
{
  buttonState = digitalRead(buttonInput);
  if (buttonState == HIGH) {
      digitalWrite(opto, LOW);
      delay(1000);               // wait for a second
      digitalWrite(opto, HIGH);
      delay(1000);               // wait for a second
      digitalWrite(opto, LOW);
      delay(1000);               // wait for a second
      digitalWrite(opto, HIGH);
      delay(1000);               // wait for a second
      digitalWrite(opto, LOW);
      delay(1000);               // wait for a second
      digitalWrite(opto, HIGH);
      delay(1000);               // wait for a second
      digitalWrite(opto, LOW);
      delay(1000);               // wait for a second
      digitalWrite(opto, HIGH);
  } else {

  }

}

Without much info about your camera, I'd imagine that the HIGH/LOW discrepancy is the issue. Another note: this code doesn't protect against bouncing. It's fine if as it is because the delays will cause the bounces to not be picked up. If you do a "blink without delay" type of sketch using millis() and a loop, you might need to fix this. Like I said, it'll work fine now, but it's kind a crude fix since it could cause problems later if mixed with other code.