I've wired simple circuit with 9V battery, red LED, 10K resistor to turn the light on.
And I'd like to know if the LED is lighting or not using arduino.
I simply wired Arduino's A0 pin and LED's + lead. Next, if I get value from A0 using analogRead() function, it returns 0 always. If I just read from A0 without wire, it returns random values(I don't know it's random or not, anyway, it seems to be irregular).
Question: How can I know external circuit's LED is lighting or not using Arduino?
PLUS
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I've tested following schematic(sorry for its poor drawing)
4 digits display ----- 4N35(PIN 1)
ㄴ---------- 4N35(PIN 2)
ARDUINO 5V ----------- 4N35(PIN 5)
GND ---------- 4N35(PIN 4)
A0 ----------- 4N35(PIN 4) <--- This is the goal
If I place LEDs for each side, it works well.
The problem is, the voltage I've measure from 4 digits display is too low as around 0.14.
So, it may be the reason 4N35 doesn't emit any signal I think(If I turned the power on of portable range, Arduino side LED is turned on for a moment).
Okay, Question again please !!!
I'd like to know the state of portable range and my trying is figuring out which LED is lighting from the 4 digits display. But, 4N35 could not catch its voltage(not sure tho).
How can I do this? Any comment will be helpful.
Best Answer
I am assuming you are going to simply measure the voltage drop across the LED and use that to determine if the LED is on, this will work but you will need a couple of extra components, you can damage your arduino if you feed in a voltage over 5V.
simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab
In the above R1 and R2 form a voltage divider to reduce the voltage on the A0 pin of your arduino. We can calculate the maximum voltage you can use to safely stay under 5V on A0:
Finally read the value of A0 in your arduino code and use the following formula to convert that value into a voltage:
Depending on the accuracy needed you may need to mess with the 5V value above and adjust r1/r2 to a measured value (depending on accuracy of the resistors you are using).
For a complete example see https://www.udemy.com/blog/arduino-voltmeter/