About digital outputs of PIC16F877A

Question

I am currently developing a circuit that 16 LDRs, 4 LM339N ICs and 1 PIC16F877A. I compare outputs of LDRs with an adjustable reference voltage. I achieved getting 0-5 V from LM339N. Now I send these values to 16F877A as digital inputs to check if one of them is HIGH. If I check only one value, it works well and I can get voltages between 0.12-5.01 V from digital output pin. But when I increase digital inputs to two or more, digital output gives 2.1 when it is low and 2.5V when it is high and it is not enough for me. I have tried defining;

TRISB = 0xFF;

TRISC = 0xF0;

TRISD = 0xF0;

reading values between RB0-7, RC4-7, RD4-7 and writing output to RD0. I have also tried neglecting ADC module and;

TRISB = 0xFF;

TRISA = 0x00;

reading values from RB0 and RB1 and writing to RA0. But no luck yet.

I am using 8 MHz HS crystal with two 22 pF capacitors. Pin 1 has a resistor with push button. PIC is supplied with 5.1 V from 11-32 pins and ground is connected to 12-31 pins. I don't have any prepared circuit diagram but if I cannot find any support from here, I can build it. I am using MPLAB X IDE v3.45 and PicKit2 for programming. The code is included below.

#define _XTAL_FREQ 8000000
#include 
// BEGIN CONFIG
#pragma config FOSC = HS // Oscillator Selection bits (HS oscillator)
#pragma config WDTE = ON // Watchdog Timer Enable bit (WDT enabled)
#pragma config PWRTE = OFF // Power-up Timer Enable bit (PWRT disabled)
#pragma config BOREN = ON // Brown-out Reset Enable bit (BOR enabled)
#pragma config LVP = OFF // Low-Voltage (Single-Supply) In-Circuit Serial Programming Enable bit (RB3 is digital I/O, HV on MCLR must be used for programming)
#pragma config CPD = OFF // Data EEPROM Memory Code Protection bit (Data EEPROM code protection off)
#pragma config WRT = OFF // Flash Program Memory Write Enable bits (Write protection off; all program memory may be written to by EECON control)
#pragma config CP = OFF // Flash Program Memory Code Protection bit (Code protection off)
//END CONFIG
void main(){
    ADCON1 = 6;
    CMCON = 7;
    TRISB = 0xFF;
    TRISA = 0x00;
    RA0 = 0;
    while(1){
        if(RB0 == 1){RA0 = 1;}else{RA0 = 0;}
        __delay_us(5);
        if(RB1 == 1){RA0 = 1;}else{RA0 = 0;} // Works well when I comment this line.
    }
}

Also tried building if/else if/else structure, not working too. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The problem is that you have different value for RB0 and RB1:

Suppose RB0=0, and RB1=1, the flow of the code is:

RA0=0 then delay 5us then RA0=1 then loop

If you hook an oscilloscope you will find that RA0 pin is actually toggling but reading the voltage pin using a voltmeter will average(generally speaking) this pulsed signal.

I didn't understand what are you trying to achieve here but you are controlling 1 output using 2 inputs which is really strange.

If you want to check if one of the inputs is high then you shall do the following:

while(1)
{
if((RB0==1)||(RB1==1))
RA0=1;
else
RA0=0;
}