Thread: Try Me Button

Me sooo want!

Hey Spirit - Make a "Special Order" link for your loyal Halloween Forum fans!

The buttons are wired... With an 8' cord if I remember correctly. It has a standard stereo headphones connector on the end. I'll go dig mine out when I have some time and take some photos of them.

I have been using those closet lights that you press and they turn on. I replace the switch with a momentary connect switch, wire in a wall wart with some blinking LEDs. The blinking LEDs are always on to grab peoples attention to the button/light. When you press the light, the momentary switch triggers the prop, and also lights up to give you feeback that you triggered the prop. The light is around $2, the wallwart $1, another $1 for the switch and led's...$8 is a fair price. It's fun modifying the lights, but it sure is easier opening up the package and having it done.

Ok, I snapped some images of the buttons I have...





It has a spot for 3 LR44 batteries. However, on these they aren't active(no terminals or internal hardware beyond the momentary switch)


There is a space for a speaker, so presumably the batteries would be to run an audio clip when the button is pressed. And maybe perhaps an led to light up the button.


Here you can sort of see the mono headphone plug. So it just carries a + and - signal is all. And it's just a simple momentary switch.


My though was to eventually wire the button up to a micro-controller based prop. So the micro-controller would control the button and have leds on the button light or flash to attract people, then when pressed, the lights would go out, it would perhaps play a sound effect, and the button would be disabled until after the prop has finished it's routine.

But with them selling the buttons this year, I wonder if they've added the additional circuitry to the button for audio/lighting by default... Guess we'll have to wait and see.

I noticed when you apply power most of these props activate....The only prop I activated that was the original built in program was the spirit mirror....I didn't like it beyond the first 10 or so seconds so I plugged it into a BooBox 105 with a motion sensor and it worked great! I had the first channel trigger something else followed by the mirror on channel 2....It timed out perfect every time......

Don't forget that Spirit said they would be anouncing an alternative to triggering our props so I'm curious to see what else they have to offer unless this is what they were talking about?.....ZR

I'm curious too... They sold the foot pads last year that had a mini molex kind of connection plug, and then the try me buttons that weren't officially sold used the headphone connector... Which may have been for just a "demo mode", not normal prop activation. So I'm interested if the try me is the new activation method, and if it'll use the molex connector or not.

It seems like they should/could have a whole line of triggers that could be interchangeable with any of their props. The props could still have the built in motion/sound activation, but then have a standardized external trigger socket. That could support maybe light beam, pressure/foot pad, button, external motion, maybe a premium "thermal" trigger (so that fog, your props, or trees blowing in the wind don't set it off). Just depending on how you wanted to set off the prop. Are you listening Spirit?

Maybe even multiple plugs to allow different trigger methods with perhaps a different routine result? Plug 1 (motion for example as they walk into the room) activates routine 1 and the props says phrase 1 while motion 1 happens. Plug 2 (foot pad as they are leaving the room maybe) activates routine 2 and the prop says phrase 2 while motion 2 happens. I don't know... I'm just thinkin... I expect a decent amount of function out of a $100something-$200+ dollar prop. Really, the circuitry isn't that difficult, and it's inexpensive. Especially when you're pumping out 10's of thousands of them.

I picked some of these up last year...just called spirit and the store manager told me to come get a few cuz he had extra...work great!