Ruben Laguna's blog

Mar 21, 2009 - 3 minute read - accelerometer arduino electronics library max756 mma7260q sensor tilt xbee

Arduino library for MMA7260Q (Tilt Sensor)

In the past days I published a couple of arduino libraries. All coming from by XBee sensor development. I’m still waiting for the MAX756 to arrive from Futurlec, I need the MAX756 to power the xbee sensor with batteries and mount it in its final position. So in the meanwhile I’m cleaning a little bit the code, moving thing to libraries, etc. Now it’s the turn of the MMA7260Q, (see other posts about MMA7260q) .

I created an Arduino library to use MMA7260Q as a Tilt Sensor that does autozero calibration.

The library contains an example that can be accessed through the File ⇒ Sketchbook ⇒ Examples ⇒ Library-Mma7260q ⇒ SimpleTiltSensor.

SimpleTiltSensor library

The example looks like this (also available as gist):

#include "mma7260q.h"

//set up MMA7260Q
Mma7260q mma7260q = Mma7260q(0,1,2);

long time = millis();

void setup() {

  Serial.begin(9600);
  delay(100);

  //initial calibration of the MMA7260q
  // you can get the correct values for your MMA7260q
  // by running this program and copying the max and min values
  // after rotating the mma7260q 360degrees around all axis
  mma7260q.autoZeroCalibration(173,192,258);
  mma7260q.autoZeroCalibration(766,720,914);

  Serial.print("RST\r\n");delay(100);
}

void loop()
{
  float rho, phi, theta;
  mma7260q.readTilt(&rho,&phi,&theta);

  if ((millis()-time)>2000)
  {
    time = millis();
    Serial.print("rho : ");
    printFloat(rho,3);
    Serial.print(" phi : ");
    printFloat(phi,3);
    Serial.print(" the: ");
    printFloat(theta,3);
    Serial.print("\r\n");

    int minx,miny,minz,maxx,maxy,maxz;
    mma7260q.getMinValues(&minx,&miny,&minz);
    mma7260q.getMaxValues(&maxx,&maxy,&maxz);
    Serial.print("minx: ");
    Serial.print((int)minx,DEC);
    Serial.print(" miny: ");
    Serial.print((int)miny,DEC);
    Serial.print(" minz: ");
    Serial.print((int)minz,DEC);
    Serial.print("\r\n");

    Serial.print("maxx: ");
    Serial.print((int)maxx,DEC);
    Serial.print(" maxy: ");
    Serial.print((int)maxy,DEC);
    Serial.print(" maxz: ");
    Serial.print((int)maxz,DEC);
    Serial.print("\r\n");

  }
}

void printFloat(float value, int places) {
  // this is used to cast digits
  int digit;
  float tens = 0.1;
  int tenscount = 0;
  int i;
  float tempfloat = value;

  // if value is negative, set tempfloat to the abs value
  // make sure we round properly. this could use pow from
  //<math.h>, but doesn't seem worth the import
  // if this rounding step isn't here, the value 54.321 prints as
  //54.3209

  // calculate rounding term d: 0.5/pow(10,places)
  float d = 0.5;
  if (value < 0)
    d *= -1.0;
  // divide by ten for each decimal place
  for (i = 0; i < places; i**)
    d /= 10.0;
  // this small addition, combined with truncation will round our
  // values properly
  tempfloat += d;

  // first get value tens to be the large power of ten less than value
  // tenscount isn't necessary but it would be useful if you wanted
  // to know after this how many chars the number will take

  if (value < 0)
    tempfloat *= -1.0;
  while ((tens * 10.0) <= tempfloat) {
    tens *= 10.0;
  tenscount += 1;
}

// write out the negative if needed
if (value < 0)
  Serial.print('-');

if (tenscount == 0)
  Serial.print(0, DEC);

for (i=0; i< tenscount; i**) {
  digit = (int) (tempfloat/tens);
  Serial.print(digit, DEC);
  tempfloat = tempfloat - ((float)digit * tens);
  tens /= 10.0;
}

// if no places after decimal, stop now and return
if (places <= 0)
  return;

// otherwise, write the point and continue on
Serial.print('.');

// now write out each decimal place by shifting digits one by one
// into the ones place and writing the truncated value
for (i = 0; i < places; i**) {
  tempfloat *= 10.0;
  digit = (int) tempfloat;
  Serial.print(digit,DEC);
  // once written, subtract off that digit
  tempfloat = tempfloat - (float) digit;
}

References: