[Aldeross]

I'm looking for a tutorial on a complete animatronic setup. Just the electronic part of it. I would like to have a motion activated prop the moves and lights up and has sound. To be honest I have no idea where to start for triggering or pcb or anything
I have only converted Dore bought props to wireless. Wife and I are looking to dive I to diy. Any help would be great.

 

[J-Man]

Well, you've requested info for a very broad spectrum. A little more detail on what kind of prop you're looking to build would help. Personally, I like the products from EFX-TEK.com. Take a look at their site and you can read up on their electronics.

 

[Aldeross]

Thanks j-man. To be more specific a motion triggered prop the moves head and arms while lighting up and screaming. 8m wonder what electronic components I will need

 

[Eerie Erie Haunts]

The motion trigger part is easy--get a motion activated floodlight. Take out the lights, and screw in a socket outlet adapter. Then just plug in your prop.

To do what you're asking, the prop itself needs a prop controller like these. Each motor, light, and sound would need its own output. The movements and sounds can be programmed and synchronized, and the prop could be programmed to return to a neutral or resting state at the end of the cycle.

I suppose you could do it without a controller, if you plugged the motor, lights, and speakers into the motion detector, and had a separate audio track always running on an mp3 player or something. The sound wouldn't sync well that way, though, and when the power cut off, the prop would be stuck in whatever position it happened to be in until it was triggered again. Depending on the prop, this may or may not be a problem.

The motors and lights you need would depend on the prop. so we'd need more information to help you out there.

 

[J-Man]

Thanks j-man. To be more specific a motion triggered prop the moves head and arms while lighting up and screaming. 8m wonder what electronic components I will need

As Eerie Erie Haunts has metioned, you're gonna need some type of motion detector, a prop controller, and an audio player (preferably one that's triggerable).
In addition, motors, servos, or pneumatic cylinders and solenoids (depending on how you are going to move the arms/head), speakers. and power supplies for everything. IMO if you are just starting out, I would go with some type of true programmable controller like the PROP-1 from EFX-TEK. Learning to use this type from the start will give you MUCH more flexibility to control your props verses the easier "key banger" controllers.

 

[Aldeross]

I didn't realize the controllers were so expensive. In retrospect it looks a lot easier than some of the other setups I see using individual components.

 

[J-Man]

The Prop-1 controller is $40 which is pretty reasonsable. You'll be surprised what you can do with it. There are dirt cheap audio players on ebay that play wav and or mp3 files from SD or microSD cards. Just depends what you want to do.