C# and Arduino problem with serial port

Question

I would like to establish a communication between my C# program and my Arduino Duemilanove. I tried lot of different tutorials, but none of them were the same, and I'm a little bit confused.

Actually my code is:

C#

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.IO.Ports;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace InterfaceArduinoWindowsFOrm {
  public partial class Form1 : Form {
    public Form1() {
      InitializeComponent();
      serialPort1.PortName = "COM3";
      serialPort1.BaudRate = 9600;
      serialPort1.Open();
    }

    private void pictureBox1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
    }

    private void tabPage2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
    }

    private void listBox1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) {
    }

    private void toolTip1_Popup(object sender, PopupEventArgs e) {
    }

    private void notifyIcon1_MouseDoubleClick(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) {
      Console.WriteLine("test");
    }

    private void button1_Click_1(object sender, EventArgs e) {
      serialPort1.Write("5");
      Console.WriteLine(serialPort1.IsOpen);
    }
  }
}

Arduino:

/* Sweep
  by BARRAGAN <http://barraganstudio.com>
  This example code is in the public domain.
  modified 8 Nov 2013
  by Scott Fitzgerald
  http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Sweep
*/

#include <Servo.h>

Servo myservo;  // Create servo object to control a servo.
// Twelve servo objects can be created on most boards.
int pos = 0;
int message = 0; // This will hold one byte of the serial message
                 // variable to store the servo position.

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  myservo.attach(9);  // Attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object
}

void loop() {
  if (Serial.available()) {

    // Check to see if there is a new message
    message = Serial.read();

    // Put the serial input into the message
    Serial.print(message);

    if (message == '5') {
      Serial.print("test");
      for(pos = 0; pos <= 180; pos += 1) {
        // Goes from 0 degrees to 180 degrees
        // in steps of 1 degree

        myservo.write(pos);
        // Tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos'

        delay(15);
        // Waits 15 ms for the servo to reach the position
      }

      for(pos = 180; pos>=0; pos-=1) {
        // Goes from 180 degrees to 0 degrees

        myservo.write(pos);
        // Tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos'

        delay(15);
        // Waits 15 ms for the servo to reach the position
      }
    }
  }
}

The problem is, when I click my button, nothing happens, but obviously if I remove the if statement, the servo motor code works.

Answer 1

Since you are sending from the Arduino the received serial data back to the C# application (Serial.print(message);), I would advise to check what you receive on the C# side. Register to the DataReceived event of the SerialPort as so:

serialPort1.DataReceived += new SerialDataReceivedEventHandler(DataReceivedHandler);

And add an event handler:

private void DataReceivedHandler(object sender, SerialDataReceivedEventArgs e)
{
    SerialPort port = (SerialPort)sender;
    string data= port.ReadExisting();
    // check here what data you received, if any
}

This way you could confirm that the Arduino gets the data properly from the C# side to begin with. Next step would be to understand if this if statement treats the data properly:

if (message == '5')

But starting from examination of what you get from the C# side will help you decide where exactly is the problem.