Motion detector triggering Vixen?

[Rocketman4]

Has anyone triggered Vixen controller with a motion detector? Very interested in doing this for Halloween.

[Walden]

I think ive seen i topic of this but i might be mistaken.

[Matt]

It would certainly be feasible. You would need to rig up a motion detector circuit with input to the computer (probably the input pins on the parallel port), and use a trigger plug-in.

-Matt

[Rocketman4]

I (electrician) am good with running wire or even building a new 200 amp service on a house, but this computer stuff gets over my head quick.

[3vil]

also VERY interested... i was actually going to rip apart a keyboard and solder leads to the spacebar but if someone has a better idea (maybe even a wireless remote), by all means share

[kiwichristmas]

last year I wrote a couple of trigger pluggins for vixen to trigger off joystick buttons (gameport or usb), see http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=271
hope this is helpful

[DynamoBen]

If you want something compact this might be a good way to go: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2906724&cp=&sr=1&origkw=PIR&kw=pir&parentPage=search

[Vadoo]

I'm not sure where this left off but I thought i would add my two cents.
I install security sestems, access control systems, and other fun stuff. So i know a bit about motion detectors.
A wired option would be easy with the right pluggin and input to the computer if someone smarter then me at that part of it could come up with something. Motions used for access control systems come with n/c and n/o ralays onboard and are fairly cheap(depending on what one you can find)
Wirless would be a little more difficult. The wirless motions send a signal with a device specific id code. Again, someone smarter then me at the RF design part of things could come up with a reciever of some sort, this could be used. The RF motions also go up in price of course.

It would be kind of neat if you had more then one area in your display along a path setup with motions to trigger different sequences specific to the area/motion triggered:)

[alwysrit2]

Hi All,
I was reading this thread last night. I think I am looking for a piece of hardware that allows 2-4 triggers and uses USB. Serial or Parallel can work, but I am going to be using 595's and Ren 16's so I would like to stay away from those ports. I have a couple of k8055's and maybe those are the way to go. A hacked joystick might work too. I was thinking of doing a keyboard hack, but I don't think it would work that well with multiple triggers unless I could guarantee only one being triggered at a time and I am not sure what that might do to CPU usage. The sensor I use is a DIY pressure pad that is N/O unless being stepped on.
Also, I tried the plugin that Kiwi wrote and it looks like it doesn't work with v2.0.5 of vixen.
Anyway, that is where I am and what I am thinking
-Don

[Vadoo]

I've never seen the k8055's before. Unless someone has a better idea, I think personaly I would use those. They use usb ports, and they are the easiest ports to add more of if you run out. I dont know anything about writing plugins though, maybe its all dependant on what would work best in a pluggin? My guess (and its not much more then that) is the pluggin would be hardware specific to the k8055. In which case maybe there is a more flexible solution? (I curiously await the finnal word from the pros!)

[alwysrit2]

I agree, the k8055 is a nice little controller and the price isn't too bad either, but I wouldn't mind a hack to a cheap joystick either. KC currently has my k8055's so he could write the plugins and do all the testing neccessary. I am sure at least one of these solutions will work out this year.
-Don

[SyPTo]

EM84510FP or BU9206-ND both are DIP-16 packages and are PS/2 mouse controllers , easy , cheap ($1-2) and don't need much additional components (resistor + cap) to make it work...

problem is finding them...lol

[teberle]

I was looking into this last year and thought about using the EFX-Tek controller with there PIR device. The pluggin has already been written for vixen.

[pete]

I used Kiwichristmas' joystick trigger plugin last halloween. I worked great. The plugin only allows uses of two joystick. So i ran two different seqs (was alittle tricky to get the system to use the second joystick). Here is my post from last Halloween http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=997&highlight=trigger . I have a pcb on the drawing board for 15 inputs on on joystick port. Vixen did have a memory at the time that cause my pc to lockup once an hour. Not sure if KC was able to correct that.

[alwysrit2]

Depending on the cost, I would be interested in that pcb. Actually price wouldn't be an issue on this :)
-Don

[Virtus]

Posted to wrong thread, sorry.

[SeaHoCaptain]

Can I drag this up form the dead :-)

I was very sucessful with the Grinch last Christmas with everyones help. And now that Halloween is in the near future I would like to start working out my haunt. I'd love to have vixen running a small show of lights just for the attraction. Then have a few motion detectors triggers on the approach to the house to then fire other events (fog machines, additional lighting, etc) as the little goblin approach.

I'm interested mostly in the vixen trigger aspect in this post. There seem to be other post on moding the fog machines. I'm one of the novices out here. I can usually understand step by steps, pics ,parts list and even simple schematics very well. But this thread just left too much for my imagination. Can anyone shed more light?

Thanks in Advance

David

[cgarwood]

I would also like to request more information about this... although I'm coming more from a security point of view.

I'm wanting to rig up about 6 motion sensors around my yard for the display. If someone triggers the a sensor it will fire up a certain sequence (if each sensor could trigger a different sequence that would be great).Mostly if it gets triggered after show hours I want it to kick on flood lights and possibly play a recording. Could also program it to turn on the porch light or a light in the house.

I know virtually nothing about Vixen trigger responses or how to wire up the sensors, or what kind of sensors to get even.

[kiwichristmas]

Hi guys,

have you seen the following posts ?
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=347&highlight=trigger

http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4435&highlight=trigger

http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6815&highlight=trigger

http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7605&highlight=trigger

http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=271&highlight=trigger

Cheers
Chris

[lboucher]

Hi all

Vixen does have the InputPlugin capability now, so plugins for input hardware can be written. I recently implimented the Wii Guitar and it worked out awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg-aO2Yz4po

With this great comunity i am kinda surprised no one has come up with a cheap easy solution that everyone just copies. Maybe next year i will spend some time on it, or someone could beat me to it. I am thinking it would be really easy build a very cheap setup based on a simple pic or SX chip and a few IR sensors. (Wonder how far i could run those lines.) Maybe use these http://www.acroname.com/robotics/parts/R120-GP2Y0D02YK.html

I really just image a small box with a micrcontroller in it, serial to the laptop, and long long io lines to the IR sensors spread across the yard, cost would be primarly dependant on how many sensors ya want.

[SeaHoCaptain]

Well ... I run X10 in the house too. I guess I could use their wireless motion sensors and let x10 monitor and fire off some event that Vixen can pick up on? That would reduce the wires but not sure about response time. I'll also have to leave the x10 wired to the network but that no biggie.

David

[kiwichristmas]

ok,

found this site
http://www.raphnet.net/electronique/usb_game12/index_en.php

which has a simple design for a USB game controller with 12 inputs (8 buttons + 4 directions)
this will give you 8 triggers, with a very low part count (13), should be easy to build on a
proto board (i've ordered the parts and going to give it a go when they turn up).
they also sell prebuilt boards

it should work fine with the following pluggin

(joylib_103.zip) (http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=50&d=1183528496)

you will need to have directx installed to use the pluggin, you can down load it from version : directx 9.0c (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en)

see this post on setting up and using the plugin
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showpost.php?p=69820&postcount=6

note : Trigger type: Kiwi_wintrigger will be Trigger type: Kiwi_inputs

Regards
Chris

[DynamoBen]

Go here for options:

http://www.freewebs.com/hpropman/Methods%20of%20Motion%20Detection.html