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I have no idea why this has been happening:

byte potenciometro = 0;int redpin=9;  

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
int valor=analogRead(potenciometro);  delay(50);
Serial.println();
Serial.print(valor, DEC);

analogWrite(redpin,valor);   }

This code above has been working just fine. However, i understand the LEDs will work properly with intensities that range from 1 to 255, so i replaced this line

Serial.print(valor, DEC);

for this Serial.print((valor/700)*255, DEC);

and all that the IDE has been returning since then is 0 as console output.

i tried also just 

Serial.print(valor/700, DEC);

and i get nothing but 0s

anyone?

my arduino is the UNO version.

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  • Why are you dividing the value by 700? The potentiometer is not connected between GND and 5V (I suppose 3.3V)? If you have full scale values (0..1023) it's possible just divide the value by 4 to get result between 0 and 255. Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 10:22

2 Answers 2

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In the C family of programming languages, the division operator (/), when used with integer arguments, provides an integer division. You get the integer quotient, and you can use % to get the remainder.

If you want a floating point division, then at least one of the arguments should be a floating point number. E.g.:

Serial.print(valor / 700.0 * 255);

(the DEC argument is redundant). The final result is then truncated to an integer before being passed to Serial.print().

A better option, which is outlined in dhimaspw's answer, is to do the multiplication before the division. This way you avoid costly floating point operations. If you do that, however, you should be careful about overflows: valor*255 can be as big as 1023 × 255 = 260865, which is larger than the maximum value an int can store (215−1 = 32767). You should then write

Serial.print(valor * 255L / 700);

where the L suffix forces the operation to be carried using long integers.

The simplest solution, however, is to use the Arduino function map(), which does essentially the same as above:

Serial.print(map(valor, 0, 700, 0, 255));
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  • Serial.print(valor / 700.0f * 255); would work better. 700.0 is a double not a float and so by the rules of the c language that entire calculation is done as doubles. Adding that f in turns it into a float. On a low end microcontroller you really want to avoid doubles as much as possible, double operations are twice as slow as a floats and floats are slow enough already. Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 10:12
  • 1
    @Andrew: The OP is working on an Uno. A double is the same as a float on the AVRs. Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 10:41
  • That in this particular case the standards aren't followed and so it doesn't make a difference isn't a good justification for inefficient coding. Pressing 1 extra key is a small price for a good habit and portable efficient code. Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 10:49
  • Not meaning to nitpick but I'd just point out that mapping floats to doubles on the UNO is a software choice implemented in the gnu compilers, not hardware-driven at all as the hardware has no support for floating point. A different tool-set might well implement a different choice. So could a programmer using gnu for that matter, by defining an 'sfloat' (small- or single-precision float) object and its arithmetic operators. Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 21:13
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Using Serial.print (xx,DEC) will give you a number on decimal base (round number). That's why your first code works

To solve this, you just simply change to 

Serial.print((valor*255/700),4) //4 digits behind comma
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  • i tried adding this before the analogWrite valor=((valor*255/700),4); but the intensity of the led remains fixed Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 7:30
  • AnalogWrite only receive round numbers. Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 7:33
  • 2
    This solution overflows for values over the 128 (analog read returns values 0..1023) and it doesn't really explain why valor/700 is zero or one if the value is greater or equals to 700 Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 10:14

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