Measuring The Capacitor Range With Arduino Mega 2560

Introduction

• In this article I will explain about measuring the Capacitor Range with Arduino Mega 2560.
• It can simply measure the capacitor range in the serial monitor.

Parts List

• Arduino Mega 2560
• Capacitor
• Hookup Wires
• Bread Board

Capacitor

• A capacitor (originally known as a condenser) is a passive two-terminal electrical component.
• It is used to store electrical energy temporarily in an electric field.
• In the two terminal it can have the postive and negative terminal

      Figure 1: Capacitor

Connection

Step 1: Connecting From Arduino to capacitor.

• Connect the postive terminal to the digital pin of A1 to the board
• Connect the negative terminal to the A0 of the board

Programming:

const int OUT_PIN = A1;
const int IN_PIN = A0;
//Capacitance between IN_PIN and Ground
//Stray capacitance is always present. Extra capacitance can be added to
//allow higher capacitance to be measured.
const float IN_STRAY_CAP_TO_GND = 24.48; //initially this was 30.00
const float IN_EXTRA_CAP_TO_GND = 0.0;
const float IN_CAP_TO_GND = IN_STRAY_CAP_TO_GND + IN_EXTRA_CAP_TO_GND;
const int MAX_ADC_VALUE = 1023;
void setup()
{
    pinMode(OUT_PIN, OUTPUT);
    //digitalWrite(OUT_PIN, LOW); //This is the default state for outputs
    pinMode(IN_PIN, OUTPUT);
    //digitalWrite(IN_PIN, LOW);
    Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop()
{
    //Capacitor under test between OUT_PIN and IN_PIN
    //Rising high edge on OUT_PIN
    pinMode(IN_PIN, INPUT);
    digitalWrite(OUT_PIN, HIGH);
    int val = analogRead(IN_PIN);
    //Clear everything for next measurement digitalWrite(OUT_PIN, LOW);
    pinMode(IN_PIN, OUTPUT);
    //Calculate and print result
    float capacitance = (float) val * IN_CAP_TO_GND /
        (float)(MAX_ADC_VALUE - val);
    Serial.print(F("Capacitance Value = "));
    Serial.print(capacitance, 3);
    Serial.print(F(" pF ("));
    Serial.print(val);
    Serial.println(F(") "));
    while (millis() % 500 != 0);
}

Explanation

• In this article I explained about the measuring the range of the capacitor.
• It can print the value in the serial monitor.

Output

                                             Figure 2: Output