Will this sketch eventually fail because of integer limit issue?

Question

I am a novice in Arduino programming and I'm setting up an Arduino controlled, underwater time-lapse camera to take a picture every 2 hours. It's going in the ocean for a month and I want to be sure that the code will not fail because of the upper limit that normal integers can go. The Arduino simply switches on a relay (connected to the LED_PIN 11) and the camera does the rest, using a script from the awesome Canon Hackers Development Kit C.H.D.K.

I've tried several variations of sketch, some using simple delay, some with millis and some with counters that print what increment the loop it up to.

One of my fast running test sketches, that used a counter, stopped prematurely, I suspect due to hitting the integer limit but I'm not sure if this only occurred due to the fact that it had a counter in the sketch. So I've gone back to the simplest sketch I can find hoping it will not have this issue.

I think I read that once the integer limit is reached, the sketch will simply restart. Or maybe it will become unpredictable. I'd rather the former than the latter.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

I am sure there are many ways to go about this but I'm looking for the simplest and most robust one I can find, so that I can adjust the async timing easily ie. loop starts CameraOn for 10 seconds CameraOff for 2 hours Loop repeats

thanks in advance for your consideration

Here's the sketch I'm testing right now.

#define LED_PIN 11
#define LED_OFF 7200000     // 2 hours in millis
#define LED_ON  8000       // 6 seconds in millis 

unsigned long ms;        //time from millis()
unsigned long msLast;    //last time the LED changed state
boolean ledState;        //current LED state

void setup(void)
{
    pinMode(LED_PIN, OUTPUT);
}

void loop(void)
{
    ms = millis();
    blinkLED();
}

void blinkLED(void)
{
    if (ms - msLast > (ledState ? LED_OFF : LED_ON)) {
        digitalWrite(LED_PIN, ledState = !ledState);
        msLast = ms;
    }
}

==================================================================

Okay, I've come up with a new, much simpler sketch based on delay. Can someone please tell me if this is more robust in terms of continued looping for weeks on end?

#define LED_PIN 11

void setup()
{
   Serial.begin(9600);
   pinMode(LED_PIN, OUTPUT);
   digitalWrite(LED_PIN, HIGH);
}

void loop()
   {
       delay(7200000);                 // 2 hours in millis
       digitalWrite(LED_PIN, LOW);
       delay(8000);                    // 8 seconds in millis 
       digitalWrite(LED_PIN, HIGH);

   }

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 14 '18 at 12:49

No, the sketches will not fail or work incorrectly. The Arduino "delay()" function calls the "micros()" function for timing. The "micros()" function uses the Atmel's TIMER0 clock and waits for 1000 microseconds (1 milliseconds) each iteration. The TIMER0 overflows about every 70 minutes, but the program code used in the "delay()" function handles that overflow correctly.

Will this sketch eventually fail because of integer limit issue?

1 Answers1