Reading a Slider

Slider potentiometer

Widely used in sound mixers, the slider can be used as input for many applications. There isn’t so much to say as this device is made by two potentiometers working together. Indeed, when the cursor slides, it changes the position of two side potentiometers.

Pin description

The slider shown in Fig.1 has six pins:

1. VCC, (are two connected together) connected to power supply 3.0V DC;
2. GND, (are two connected together) connection to ground;
3. OTA, middle pin of potentiometer #1;
4. OTB, middle pin of potentiometer #2.

We can sample both OTA and OTB making mean to better evaluate slider positioning.

Proposed demo

This demo is just an edit of one proposed in sampling and dimming. Main edit is the on the conversion group as we need to read from two channels instead of one. We connected OTA to PA0 (i.e. ADC1 IN0) and OTB to PA1 (i.e. ADC1 IN1). We sample the sequence OTA, OTB 10 times so we need to provide a buffer of 16-bit unsigned which length is at least 20.

As for sampling and dimming demonstrations we made the mean for sampled values and then we print the result using chprintf().

/*
    PLAY Embedded demos - Copyright (C) 2014-2016 Rocco Marco Guglielmi
    This file is part of PLAY Embedded demos.
    Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
    you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
    You may obtain a copy of the License at
        http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
    limitations under the License.
*/
/*
    Tested under ChibiOS/RT 3.0.1, Project version 1.0
 */
#include "ch.h"
#include "hal.h"
#include "chprintf.h"
BaseSequentialStream * chp = (BaseSequentialStream *) &SD2;
static int32_t mean;
static bool flag = FALSE;
static float lastvalue;
/*===========================================================================*/
/* ADC related code                                                          */
/*===========================================================================*/
/*
 * In this demo we want to use a single channel to sample voltage across
 * the potentiometer.
 */
#define MY_NUM_CH                                              2
#define MY_SAMPLING_NUMBER                                    10
static adcsample_t sample_buff[MY_NUM_CH * MY_SAMPLING_NUMBER];
/*
 * ADC conversion group.
 * Mode:        Linear buffer, 10 samples of 2 channel, SW triggered.
 * Channels:    IN0 IN1.
 */
static const ADCConversionGroup my_conversion_group = {
  FALSE,                            /*NOT CIRCULAR*/
  MY_NUM_CH,                        /*NUMB OF CH*/
  NULL,                             /*NO ADC CALLBACK*/
  NULL,                             /*NO ADC ERROR CALLBACK*/
  0,                                /* CR1 */
  ADC_CR2_SWSTART,                  /* CR2 */
  0,                                /* SMPR1 */
  ADC_SMPR2_SMP_AN0(ADC_SAMPLE_144) |
  ADC_SMPR2_SMP_AN4(ADC_SAMPLE_144),/* SMPR2 */
  ADC_SQR1_NUM_CH(MY_NUM_CH),       /* SQR1 */
  0,                                /* SQR2 */
  ADC_SQR3_SQ1_N(ADC_CHANNEL_IN0) |
  ADC_SQR3_SQ2_N (ADC_CHANNEL_IN4)  /* SQR3 */
};
/*===========================================================================*/
/* Common functions                                                          */
/*===========================================================================*/
/*
 * Retrieve the integer part of value
 */
static int32_t ftomod(float value){
  if (value >= 0)
    return (int32_t) value;
  else
    return (int32_t) -1 * value;
}
/*
 * Retrieve the decimal part of value
 */
static uint32_t ftodp(float value) {
  if (value >= 0)
    return (uint32_t) ((value - ftomod (value)) * 1000);
  else
    return (uint32_t) ((-value - ftomod (value)) * 1000);
}
/*===========================================================================*/
/* Generic code.                                                             */
/*===========================================================================*/
static THD_WORKING_AREA(waThd1, 256);
static THD_FUNCTION(Thd1, arg) {
  (void) arg;
  chRegSetThreadName("Led handler");
  while(TRUE) {
    palTogglePad(GPIOA, GPIOA_LED_GREEN);
    chThdSleepMilliseconds(250);
  }
}
static THD_WORKING_AREA(waThd2, 512);
static THD_FUNCTION(Thd2, arg) {
  unsigned ii;
  (void) arg;
  chRegSetThreadName("Led handler");
  /*
   * Activates the ADC1 driver.
   */
  adcStart(&ADCD1, NULL);
  while(TRUE) {
    adcConvert(&ADCD1, &my_conversion_group, sample_buff, MY_SAMPLING_NUMBER);
    /* Making mean of sampled values. Note that samples refers to OTA and OTB
       but since they we are looking for Rcm (common mode) we can make a simple
       mean */
    mean = 0;
    for (ii = 0; ii < MY_NUM_CH * MY_SAMPLING_NUMBER; ii++) {
      mean += sample_buff[ii];
    }
    mean /= MY_NUM_CH * MY_SAMPLING_NUMBER;
    lastvalue = (float)mean * 3 / 4095;
    flag = TRUE;
  }
}

/*
 * Application entry point.
 */
int main(void) {
  /*
   * System initializations.
   * - HAL initialization, this also initializes the configured device drivers
   *   and performs the board-specific initializations.
   * - Kernel initialization, the main() function becomes a thread and the
   *   RTOS is active.
   */
  halInit();
  chSysInit();
  /*
   * Setting up analog inputs used by the demo.
   */
  palSetPadMode(GPIOA, 0, PAL_MODE_INPUT_ANALOG);
  palSetPadMode(GPIOA, 4, PAL_MODE_INPUT_ANALOG);
  /*
   * Activates the serial driver 2 using the driver default configuration.
   */
  sdStart(&SD2, NULL);
  chThdCreateStatic(waThd1, sizeof(waThd1), NORMALPRIO + 1, Thd1, NULL);
  chThdCreateStatic(waThd2, sizeof(waThd2), NORMALPRIO + 1, Thd2, NULL);
  /*
   * Normal main() thread activity, in this demo it checks flag status. If flag
   * is true, last value is printed and then flag is lowered. If error is true
   * an error message is printed.
   */
  while (TRUE) {
    if (flag) {
      chprintf(chp, "PLAY Embedded + ChibiOS\\RT: Slider demo \r\n");
      chprintf(chp, "Last value: %d.%03.d V \r\n", ftomod(lastvalue),
               ftodp(lastvalue));
      flag = FALSE;
      chThdSleepMilliseconds(150);
      chprintf(chp, "\033[2J\033[1;1H");
    }
    chThdSleepMilliseconds(1);
  }
}

Project download

The attached demo has been tested under ChibiOS 20.3.x.

RT-STM32F401RE-NUCLEO64-ADC-Slider-216