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Does Arduino have a Dead Man switch?

colporteur

A dead man's switch is a device used as a fail-safe. These switches are usually used as a form of fail-safe where they stop a machine with no operator from a potentially dangerous action or incapacitate a device as a result of accident, malfunction, or misuse. 

I'm looking for some method to stop an Arduino to prevent harm. Is there an Arduino code sequence that will stop an Arduino and the only way to recover is to restart the device?

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    While researching the reset pin I stumbled across sleep_mode();

    For idle (slight reduction in power): SLEEP_MODE_IDLE
    For standby (more reduction in power): SLEEP_MODE_STANDBY
    For power-down (most reduction in power): SLEEP_MODE_PWR_DOWN

    In developing a model railroad Arduino animation project from theoretical to physical, I discovered a scenario, that in theory should not happen. Well add human interaction to the mix and anything can happen. In my case two relays start to chatter by oscillating back and forth. My deadman switch idea is to stop this scenario and force the operator to reset the layout.

    There are some great suggestion provided. Responses sometime contain a solution but if it they don't the ideas provided create paths I never thought about. I long for the days when I worked with a crew of people each with different experience diversity and level. Coffee breaks where we just sat and chatted was a wonderful melting pot of ideas.

    Are there any downsides to sleep_mode? I'm hoping to take it to the lab this afternoon and do some testing. I still am not confident I have the ideal solution.

  • 0 in reply to colporteur

    If you have enough control to be able to detect the issue and programmatically place the microcontroller into a sleep state, then it sounds as if you would also have enough control to take a slightly less drastic approach. Just stop all activity and if necessary, reinitialise back to the start-up state.

    If it requires physical intervention on the track, then stop all activity under program control, turn on a 'check engine light' and wait for an 'all clear' button press before continuing operation.

  • 0 in reply to beacon_dave

    To be honest, I don't have enough information at the moment to know whether my *** is punched or bored:) My deadman switch request was a lifeline to see if I could get the code to behave.

    I have some sensor reading reliability issues that are causing problems. I now know halogen floods lights are not good when you are working with IR sensors:( 

    I need to do some additional troubleshooting to isolate the issue or issues. I threw the sleep_mode in the code today as a hail mary and it did nothing. The relays still chattered like my teeth on a November Manitoba morning.

  • 0 in reply to colporteur

    Some cold maple syrup ought to muffle or even eliminate the chatter :-) 

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