Arduino UNO + Ethernet Shield + Ultrasonic Sensor = Fail

1
votes

With my Arduino Uno I measure the distance using HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor with no problems at all using the wiring below. When I attach ethernet shield, my ultrasonic sensor does not measure distance any more, it constantly says 0cm no matter what. I have tried different digital pin pairs such as 5-7, 6-8, 5-9, 3-5, 2-8 but no luck.

I suspect that HC-SR04 is not compatible with my Ethernet shield but I haven't seen such warning anywhere on the net.

  • There are no components attached to arduino besides ethernet shield and the ultrasonic sensor itself.
  • There is no SD Card in SD Card slot.
  • My ethernet shield works fine while running a web server or web client script.
  • Digital pins of ethernet shield works fine with all other components such as temperature sensor, motion sensor etc.

Here is the ethernet shield I have; http://www.ezshopfun.com/product_info.php?products_id=169

Here is my actual circuit;

Here is my code;

#define trigPin 6
#define echoPin 7

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(echoPin, INPUT);
}

void loop() {
  int duration, distance;
  digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);
  delayMicroseconds(1000);
  digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);
  duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH) / 2;
  distance = duration / 29.1;
  Serial.print(distance);
  Serial.println(" cm");
  delay(500);
}

Circuit

4
arduinosensorsarduino-unoethernet
Can you attach actual photos of your setup and not this sketch? Have you used a multi-meter to see if the range finder is getting power and or if it's transmitting a signal? Its HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY unlikely that these are incompatible components. – Anthony Russell
@AnthonyRussell I have added my setup's photos to the original post. I have not tested if sensor is transmitting or not, should I? I mean, without the ethernet shield this very same setup works on arduino itself. Since you said it is nearly impossible to have two incompatible components here, I am speechless; don't know what to test now.. – Sarpdoruk Tahmaz
.... Omg yes haha get a multimeter and physically test every single line. When you are working with hardware dont ever ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER assume anything is working.... ever. Test the lines – Anthony Russell
btw in your photo it looks like you're connected to the 3.3v and the 5v instead of the ground. I would check that. If that's the case you may have nuked your sensor also. Another good reason to get a multimeter – Anthony Russell
@AnthonyRussell Ah, because of the angle of the photo it seems like it is attached to 5V and 3.3V but it is not. Everything with the wiring is fine :) Then I suppose I should test my circuit with a multimeter. – Sarpdoruk Tahmaz

4 Answers

1
votes

Today I bought a multimeter and tested my circuit. Here are the results;

When my circuit directly attached to Arduino itself;

4.80V & 5.7mA

When my circuit attached to ethernet shield;

3.06V & 3.8mA

I think the problem is that 3.06V is not enough for my HC-SR04 to operate.

0
votes

Yeah based on this photo

enter image description here

you're not grounding your sensor. You have two power supplies going into it. This, needless to say, is bad for a number of reasons. First and foremost because it wont work ungrounded lol

0
votes

As others have said, it looks like the main issue is that you need this connected to 5V and check your wiring generally.

However, there is another potential issue:

digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(1000);
digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);

You only need to set the trigger pin high for 10 microseconds, not 1000 microseconds. I don't know if this is an issue or not but there is no need to wait this long. You could potentially be missing some or all of the incoming pulse by waiting that long.

You might want to checkout out some HC-SR04 tutorials too, like this one:

http://superawesomerobots.com/tutorials/hc-sr04-tutorial-for-arduino/

Hope that helps.

0
votes

I had a similar problem with a wifi shield + ultrasonic sensor. I found switching from pins 13(trig) and 11(echo) to 8(trig) and 3(echo) fixed it.

See here: http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=201827.0