Thread: sound activated help

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Hello....I do a back yard Haunted Maze about 300 ft this year. I used about a dozen air activated props control from one person in a tower above so props can be seen and they are not inside the maze section. But I have a ton of electric props some with the step pad and now some with the only sound activated props inside the maze. My question is... any EASY way to activated the sound only activated props with out using more people.I am NO good at any wiring so most of that is out of the question.Hope you understand this and sorry about going on and on..lol.THANKS Howard

What type of control signal are you sending your air props? About the only way I can figure to operate the sound activated props would be to find the contacts in the prop that are closed when it is activated and connect those contacts to a relay that can be remotely operated by your person in the tower. If you already have some sort of system to actuate the solenoids on your air props you could interface that system with the sound props. The only other thing I could think of would be to put small air solenoids without a muffler on them and place them by the prop to create a noise that would actuate the prop, this would be tied into your existing system. Give us a little more info and we will try to help.

Thanks ....on my air control props it is done on the poor man side....the man in the tower watches for someone to get near them than turn a value on then right back off and they leak down on their own....lol...but kind like the air solenoids ideal...as for finding the contacts in the props..well I'm one of the NOT so smart on thing like that...

A DTMF controller is the easiest way to accomplish this. Check out these threads they describe this controller in some detail, though they are using it in video applications it only uses the audio tracks to trigger and can easily be adapted to your needs.

Dvd player hack

and

Asylum Door Prop

The one above is a huge thread but the info on the DTMF controller is in there.



This is also where we bought our DTMF controller and he also has some great info on his site, plus he's a member

http://pimpmyprop.com/

hmm after rereading your post this may not be what your looking for. We have used a type of pneumatic "knocker" to activate our of the shelf sound activated props. It works by slamming a very small "hammer" onto a piece of plywood similar to an old style pinball machine when you earn and extra play. The load pop activates the prop and we usually get a good jump from just the pop as well. This can be triggered just like any of your other pneumatic props.

Footpads also work great to trigger pneumatic props, if you aren't currently using them in this fashion it may be the way to go to reduce "button overload".

Thanks Marcharius....as for the foot pad on the air prop I'm planning on them one day but I keep spenting money (free haunt) on more goodies..lol...but I can see the hammer ideal workiing...