Thread: Hacking a Spirit footpad or "Try Me" button...possible?

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Hey all. Relatively new to these forums, but I've found a lot of useful info from experienced haunters here, and I thought I'd try my hand with a question.

I'm interested in making a motion sensor activator that would work with existing Spirit animated props like Lurching Vampire, Demonica, or anything that can hook up to the footpad or "Try Me" button. I was thinking of using something with a pen light shining on a photovoltaic cell, and when the beam is broken by some poor TOT foot, the prop would trigger.

I have some basic understanding of electronics, and I'm a pretty quick self-starter as far as understanding new concepts. But I don't have the experience to design something like this myself, so I'm tossing it out to the experts here. Is it possible to make something that would work with these props, maybe even by altering a Spirit footpad or "Try Me" button? If so, does anyone have a clue how one might go about it?

Thanks a lot for taking a look and for any guidance you can provide!

All the try me button or step pads do is complete a circuit, so all you need to do is find a way to make a photovoltaic switch.

Ok. So could I take the motion sensor from an outdoor floodlight and solder those wires to the footpad wires? It's not the sophisticated laser tripwire, granted, but it'd be nice if it were that easy. Again, not sure I can design a switch on my own at this point.

Yeah thats completely possible. There is probably something on the forum here that shows exactly that. Basically just chop the wires and use a relay of some sort, that includes those motion sensors. Let us know if you get stuck on the way and I am sure we can help out.

Take a look at the prop, there's a connection for the footpad. It should use a common connector, you can find one at an electronics store or website.

Then you just need to make or adapt a motion sensor. Look at this tutorial on Scary Terry's page:
http://www.scary-terry.com/itw/pirsensor/pirsensor.htm

Scroll to the bottom to see the version that doesn't need a prop controller. However, if you have time to put together a prop controller, you can have much more control over what happens and when. If you're interested, look at the Picaxe VLC prop controller (search this forum for it). You can use it with a motion sensor and a relay to trigger one of these props. I'm going to have several that do this th

Someone just the other day was talking about how to wire a passive infrared motion sensor. You might try to message Jack Skellington. I think he uses the small DC PIR motion detectors from http://www.suntekstore.com .

Here we go: Do motion sensors work?

Wondering if you were able to hack the step here sensor? I have one that I would like to convert and use with a motion sensor

What exactly do you mean, do you mean you have something that has a step here sensor and you want to convert it to use a motion sensor instead??

Yes, the step here sensor from Spirit Halloween, would love to take a replace motion sensor for the motion sensor lights and you can buy from a hardware store and wire it to the step sensor if possible.

Why not buy a 12v PIR sensor and a 12v power supply. Then place the C and NO into the Prop and plug in the 12v power supply so the PIR powers up. 4 wires. Really simple. Do not overthink and try to reduce the cost for converting 120v to 12v via a relay.

I never bought a spirit prop but guess the pressure mat plugs into a 2 prong plug. This is your switch wire the Green to NO and Yellow to C to these 2 plugs, Then Red to +, and Black to - on your power supply.