Doorbell Trigger

[jduawa]

Hello, just wondering what would be the best way to start a random Halloween sequence when someone rings my doorbell.
Seems like i would need to tap into the doorbell and run that over to somekind of relay, but then how would the relay trigger a sequence?
Are there any guides to writing plug-ins?
thanks

[Braveit1]

Don't know without looking but you could also just cover up your doorbell and install a 'replacement one'. The new one could be used as an input to your Vixen. Wire it to an old joystick button. Use the joystick pluging for an input controller. You could also use the other buttons for manual items.

[jduawa]

That could work...I am using an old dell laptop to run vixen so there is no gameport, but it has USB so depending on the workable distance of a USB joystick is that mght be an ideal solution.
THanks

[kiwichristmas]

Check out these thread's,
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7605
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9929
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=271

with regards to the distance, USB stardards say about 10 meters, but you could just solder a couple of wires to the joystick button and run that further.

[jduawa]

Thanks, I saw those posts and am going to try the joylib trigger...one thing i did notice is that if i push one button on the joystick and a sequence starts and then push another the next sequence will start even though the first is still running. With sequences of varying length is there any way to prevent this. I thought about using the disable timer but the timer would need to be set for the time of the longest sequence.
Thanks again

[lightman]

This thread got me so curious, I had to try it. It works great!

I was able to get both the keyboard plug in and the joystick plug in to work (have old USB Interact Raider Pro stick).

Thanks for the advice and great instructions to all.

Regards,
Lightman

[jduawa]

the end result of this would have been that someone pushes a button (instead of doorbell as suggested)
that button ties to an arduino
a certain number of arduino pins are set to output and connected to a dismantled USB keyboard, such that the pin is connected to the correct matrix of the keyboard pcb board
the arduino detects the button push, and randomly picks one of its output pins to set to high
this then would talk to the keyboard trigger and start a random sequence.
I could never get the arduino to actually short the keyboard pcb to send a "keypress" to the pc
and i could not figure out a way for the keyboard plugin to detect if a sequence was already running
Maybe for next year.

Thanks

[MinionsWeb]

Just use a prop1 from efxtek, simple basic coding, numerous outputs, can run off the same power as the doorbell (12V)