Thread: Animated Singing Fish Idea & ? on PIR Sensor

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I have a few of the Gemmy animated singing creatures (like Big Mouth Billy Bass, McDonald's "Frankie the Fish", Larry the Lobster) and wanted to come up with some way to use them in my haunt. I'm also not very electronics savvy so am going for a simple but sweet approach,...hopefully!

My concept is to create a stream bed or tide pool area that the fish could be placed in (laying flat on the surface) and be triggered to be flopping around when the ToTers walked by. The stream bed/tide pool could be made out of something like canvas material that could be painted and enhanced with "foam" river stones and such and maybe sprayed with a glossy coating to give a "wet" look. The fish could be grossed up. The location in the canvas where each Gemmy creature would go could be slit open so that the prop could be partially passed through the opening thereby hiding the mechanics below the canvas. I'm thinking this would be a nice addition for a pirate scene or even a toxic river spill scene. Heck you could probably hide some PVC pipe under the canvas in a similar manner to pass some low lying fog through and make the water "steaming". The fogger would have to be placed hidden near the canvas bed though but out in the open for safety. When halloween is over and the haunt is coming down, the creatures could be slipped back out of the canvas and the scenery canvas rolled up and stored away. Sound great to me...but

Aside from opening the units up and disconnecting the speaker (losing that music has got to be the first step!) which should be pretty easy, how difficult would it be to substitute a different PIR sensor to it so that the new PIR could be placed remotely and angled such that it would be easy to trigger when a ToT approaches? Obviously the fish lying down on the ground likely won't trigger from that position. I think the look of the floundering fish (heads and tails flopping about and mouths opening and closing) would add a lot to the scene.

Any advice on substituting the PIR? Does this sound do-able?

what do you want to hook the pir sensor up to?
do you want that to trigger the fish..

personally i would build a wood or pvc frame a few inches above the ground then place your canvs over like you said... you can wiere all the fish underneath the canvas and have everytihng hidden?

have you decided on your method of making and designing the fish

I have one of the lobsters that I've already disconnected the speaker from. Much better now!
I'll have to dig him back out and see what he looks like inside.

I have about 20 of these fish, and they are just like any Valentine's Toy, or Christmas toy...

The PIR sensor is merely a switch to turn the contraption on. There are many ways to turn these contraptions on. (Sound, Try me, and PIR)

If you want to have these things (fish) flop around in a seemingly random motion, I would only unhook (cut the wires) to the speaker. (Hearing "Don't Worry Be Happy" gets a little old...) They do a good job by themselves flopping around.

Now onto the PIR sensor... This is easy also. You could disconnect the wires to the sensor (wire in wire out, as it is only a light sensor) and either hook it up to a floor mechanism, a "try me" button, or some other sensor. Honestly, it is easier than you think. A connection makes them work. (the PIR sensor senses that there is less light than there was before thus causing a connection to be made.) If you touched the 2 wires together (floor mat) (or just touching the 2 wires that go into the PIR) the program that the "FISH" already have will run.

I think your quest is very doable at a very low budget. I may not be understanding what you are exactly going for, but I have done great things with AAT's (Already Animated Things - that's what I call them).

If you have any questions, please PM me as I think I know what you are going for, and I think I can help.

Theedwin, I think you know exactly what I was thinking and glad to hear you think it's doable and on the cheap. I'm planning on using the Gemmy creatures pretty much as they are with cosmetic modifications for the most part, that plus a replacement motion sensor of some sort to substitute for the little built-in one on the face of the fish plaque. I'm running out to do errands today, but wanted to acknowledge everyone's comments. I'll post more later.

The easiest way is to substitute another sensor for each fish individually. Then each fish gets triggered on its own, when people step on the pad, press the button, move into the PIR's range, etc.

With more work, you could have a microcontroller (Prop-1, Arduino, Picaxe) monitor one sensor and then turn on all the fish in whatever order you wanted. Either all at the same time, or starting at different times. The microcontroller would "press the button" on each fish to start it; it could also trigger any mp3 you wanted.

(Sounds of fish splashing) "Yaarh! Thar be good fishin' today!"

Whoa, where did you get 20 of them?

Originally Posted by theedwin

I have about 20 of these fish, and they are just like any Valentine's Toy, or Christmas toy...

The PIR sensor is merely a switch to turn the contraption on. There are many ways to turn these contraptions on. (Sound, Try me, and PIR)

If you want to have these things (fish) flop around in a seemingly random motion, I would only unhook (cut the wires) to the speaker. (Hearing "Don't Worry Be Happy" gets a little old...) They do a good job by themselves flopping around.

Now onto the PIR sensor... This is easy also. You could disconnect the wires to the sensor (wire in wire out, as it is only a light sensor) and either hook it up to a floor mechanism, a "try me" button, or some other sensor. Honestly, it is easier than you think. A connection makes them work. (the PIR sensor senses that there is less light than there was before thus causing a connection to be made.) If you touched the 2 wires together (floor mat) (or just touching the 2 wires that go into the PIR) the program that the "FISH" already have will run.

I think your quest is very doable at a very low budget. I may not be understanding what you are exactly going for, but I have done great things with AAT's (Already Animated Things - that's what I call them).

If you have any questions, please PM me as I think I know what you are going for, and I think I can help.

I shop at alot of thrift stores, and I always really liked these fish.... (yah, I'm a red-neck) LOL

Originally Posted by JeffHaas

The easiest way is to substitute another sensor for each fish individually. Then each fish gets triggered on its own, when people step on the pad, press the button, move into the PIR's range, etc.

With more work, you could have a microcontroller (Prop-1, Arduino, Picaxe) monitor one sensor and then turn on all the fish in whatever order you wanted. Either all at the same time, or starting at different times. The microcontroller would "press the button" on each fish to start it; it could also trigger any mp3 you wanted.

(Sounds of fish splashing) "Yaarh! Thar be good fishin' today!"

To keep it simple for this electronics newbie I was thinking of going the individual route. Nice to know they could be triggered in another way too if I up my learning curve one day. Thanks for the feedback.

Does the signal from a PIR need to be run through a relay in order to provide a dry trigger with these?