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Motion sensors


sparky741

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Greetings all,

Finishing up the last steps in my Halloween feature and looking for some suggestions. I'm making use of my mp3 director card for the interactive inputs and decided that a motion sensor will get the display to do what I want it to. My question is what kind have any of you all used and how well do they work? I'd like to order them today if possible to get them here in time. Thanks for any help :)

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I bought something similar to of these: http://www.milestonesafety.com/minialertalarm.html

I then took it apart and removed the "alarm/chime" part of it. It then has a transistor that pulls a line to ground when motion is detected. Since it's designed to run on 3 AA batteries, it will run nicely on the +5v available from the sensor header board.

Here's what I did: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=116597&l=862d3640dc&id=1834089542

I'm using this to trigger a sequence when the trick-or-treat'ers walk towards the front door. It seems to work fine.

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Thank you for the suggestions fellas.

Steven, I'm looking at the picture you linked to. Of the guts lying on the table there, is that what is left after you removed the chime/alarm portion of the device? Also, could you clarify the connections you have drawn on the bottom sheet of paper? Is 5V the right-most connection? Common is apparent, but where did you hook up the input trigger? Thanks again for your help.

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Was just looking around some more and found this at radio shack:

http://rsk.imageg.net/graphics/uc/rsk/Support/ProductManuals/2800009_PM_EN.pdf

A little more expensive than the one you suggested Steven, but looks simple enough. Looks like the input trigger would get connected across the transistor. The 10V provided on the director card could take the place of the 9V battery or just bypass it all together and use the 5V right on the detector. Only reason I am looking at this one is I could pick it up at Radio Slack to save on 2nd day shipping cost. Typical last-minute me. LOL

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sparky741 wrote:

Was just looking around some more and found this at radio shack:

http://rsk.imageg.net/graphics/uc/rsk/Support/ProductManuals/2800009_PM_EN.pdf

A little more expensive than the one you suggested Steven, but looks simple enough. Looks like the input trigger would get connected across the transistor. The 10V provided on the director card could take the place of the 9V battery or just bypass it all together and use the 5V right on the detector. Only reason I am looking at this one is I could pick it up at Radio Slack to save on 2nd day shipping cost. Typical last-minute me. LOL

That is a part of a manual for Snap Circuits. While great for learning basic electricity, it's not exactly made for using as a real motion detector. It's not actually a true motion detector. Look up Snap Circuits for more info.

There is more than one type of motion sensor. Some cheaper ones can have many false alarms because of their sensitivity (wind blowing branches around and such). PIR sensors are infrared driven rather than light driven. They are a better sensor overall.
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sparky741 wrote:

Steven, I'm looking at the picture you linked to. Of the guts lying on the table there, is that what is left after you removed the chime/alarm portion of the device?

The motion detector is on the right. The two horizontal slots visible as dark lines near the top of the board are where the "alarm" and "ding-dong" daughter cards were installed. The "ding-dong" card is in the middle of the picture. I made a schematic of how it was connected because I thought I might use it in the future to make a doorbell-sounding device.


Also, could you clarify the connections you have drawn on the bottom sheet of paper? Is 5V the right-most connection? Common is apparent, but where did you hook up the input trigger? Thanks again for your help.

Ignore that bottom sheet. It's for the ding-dong. Looking at the main board, there are two transistors in the upper right. One of these pulls its collector to ground when motion is detected. I connected this transistor directly to the input on the controller.

5V and common were easily found by following the leads from the battery compartment.
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