Hello,

I am trying to read out the serial value from a Maxsonar-EZ1 ultrasonic device. This device sends an ASCII capital “R”, followed by three ASCII character digits representing the range in inches up to a maximum of 255, followed by a carriage return (ASCII 13). Unfortunately I'm not very savvy when it comes to traditional text programming (me using vvvv mainly). So far I'm using this sketch:
[quote]String distance = "";

void setup() {
 Serial1.begin(9600); // MaxSonar-EZ1 connected to Serial1 Pin
 Serial.begin(9600);  // Serial set to 9600 as specified by MaxSonar. NB: There is no benefit in setting a higher rate as the EZ1 only talks @ 9600
}

void loop() {
 distance = Serial1.read();
 Serial.print("Distance: ");
 Serial.println(distance);            // print distance
} [/quote]

It's not reading the Rxxx[RET] string right like this, when I declare distance as 'int' or 'byte' I get results but they're not usable. What I just want from it would be to print serially 'Rxxx'.

I'm a noob, please help or point me to what I miss here.
Thanks, Patrick

Uh, sorry for my late reply, it seem my spam filter has eaten the notification. This is the output:
Code:

?Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
Distance:
 

Not much happening this way, the output itself is no longer than this for a minute. Sifting the examples for something adaptable, I failed making  sense of the nomenclature needed for this task  

Using this sketch Code:

String buffer = String("");
int ready = 0;
int val;

void setup() {
  Serial1.begin(9600);               // MaxSonar-EZ1 connected to Serial1 Pin
  Serial.begin(9600);                // Serial set to 9600 as specified by MaxSonar.
}

void loop() {
  val = Serial1.read();
  Serial.println(val, BYTE);
  val = 0;
  delay(50);
}
 

the output looks like this
Code:

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+
?
V
V
V
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V
V
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V
V
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V
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V
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V
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V
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V
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?
 

The values do change when the detected range changes but, I'd prefer them to be within 0 and 255 (like they'll get send by the EZ-1).

The ultimate goal would be to read three of these Sensors and send their values separated like CSV or so.

patrick_r wrote on 02/15/09 at 17:33:28:

If I would know what type (string, value, …) Serial.read outputs, I could wrap my head around this better I guess