XCVG
ModRetro Legend
This is the first year I'm not going trick-or-treating. The guys I always go with say that we're too old for it now. And my best friend is working Halloween night. No costume, because it would be pointless and I don't have time. Not going to any parties. Gonna stay home, which brings me to...
XCVG's Excessively Complicated Arduino Based Serial Controllable Halloween Rig with Semi-integrated Video Surveillance
Some people go all out on Halloween. For most people, that means dressing up in a fairly lame costume. For a few people, that means dressing up in an extremely awesome costume. For some people, it means buying a bunch of decorations.
And for people like me, it means an electronics hacking project.
Awesome pumpkin! This one is actually a fake craft pumpkin. They are ridiculously expensive but I didn't pay for it. Lit up with my Phallic Object Halloween Pumpkin Light (red).
The Central Control and Power Distribution Unit. The yellow box houses two outlets and most of the AC wiring. The leftmost box contains the relays, haphazardly hot glued and point-to-point wired, the extremely ghetto perfboard relay driver, 120VAC, 12VDC, 5VDC and DC Common power buses, and a few LED drivers. The middle box houses the Arduino (actually a Freeduino SB), another type of distribution bus, and a bunch of wires. The last box houses 12V and 5V power supplies. The 12V supply is used for one relay and the LEDs, the 5V supply for some of the relays. The side boxes are dollar store food containers, the middle one is a deck screw container, and the yellow AC box is a proper box, mounted sideways.
This is why I really wish I had a laptop. That is an ancient, slow as Heck Pentium III desktop standing backwards on its side, and an even more ancient 15" CRT monitor. I used to love CRT monitors, then I loved LCDs and thought I could never go back, well, I could, but at an increased suicide risk. Anyway, the control unit is there and the fog machine harness is laying on the floor.
I don't have a picture of the various sensors, lights and things that plug in right now, but I can give you a mostly complete list.
-Control Unit: Described as above.
-Skull: Features lights and an old camcorder. Very ugly and ghetto looking.
-Wii Screen: Some of you might remember it. Used as a video monitor.
-phallic pumpkin light: Red, uses a 9V battery but has wired transistorized control. Yes, I know that is epic fail right there.
-reflector pumpkin light: Has a tinfoil reflector that tends to get bent and doesn't work that well. Transistors off board, in the control module. Purple.
-blue pumpkin light: Blue and built on a part from a coffeemaker (no, really!). Bright, no transistor (in control box), and smells like burnt coffee.
-simple motion sensor: Runs off 5V, 3-wire connection, works fairly well. I made a really crude housing/stand thing.
-"smart" motion sensor: Zdots SBC. What a piece of flax. Oversensitive and the sensitivity adjustment is awkward (though it may just be my implementation). Has a delay of 5 seconds before it turns back off (good for security purposes, absolute flax for my purposes). Requires 3.3V. I can't get it to work usably, so I'm not using it for this project.
-120V lights: Two 120V lights made from random boxes and ceiling fixtures. I'm putting a blacklight CFL in one and a standard blue "party" incandescent in the other. I may add a trouble light as well.
-flash unit: I took two disposable cameras and modified them a bit to charge automatically and be fired by a relay. I should have built a power supply, but I was lazy so I'm using AAs. I don't expect that to last very long.
-fog machine with chiller: A cheap "The Fog Machine" fog machine with a very hacked-up remote. The switch is replaced by wires to a relay and I glued a photocell over the light to sense when it is ready. Believe it or not, the photocell actually works.
-audio system: My crude amp. It has a noise problem but it'll do fine for this. For speakers I'm using some random crappy computer speakers. Sounds are played from the computer.
My program is pretty crude. Everything can be turned on and off from the serial terminal. I can set it on a few arbitrarily coded routines as well. The computer plays the sounds, but it is not automated. I have both loops and sound effects that I can play. Even the crappy PIII is fast enough to have the serial terminal open and play sounds at the same time.
And now, some random remarks:
-I should really buy wire. The stuff I have is either the wrong kind, or flax.
-Phone wire is difficult to strip, ugly, and has dubious current handling capability, but is really useful. I bought a 100 foot cable at a thrift store for $1.50.
-I need to find a way to automate the playing of sounds. I don't know what to code it in, though. I hear Processing is easy to use, and it gets plugged a lot in Arduino circles.
-One Arduino is great. Two Arduinos is better. I need another Arduino.
-Probably should have built a proper circuit board for the relay drivers. Also should have been more organized with the relays, but they are all random types.
-Running 5V relays at 9V is probably not a good idea. I haven't done it with this project... yet.
-I actually found an Eye Toy soon after setting up the camcorder and stuff. Cue swear words. I may use it in addition to the camcorder, maybe.
-Fog chillers need a lot of ice.
-Machine pin headers are flax for the most part. They mate well with machine pin SIP sockets, but don't mate well at all with normal female headers. I've had to redo a few cables because of these. I don't have a lot of headers left either.
While we're on the topic, why don't we discuss:
-Halloween costumes
-what you're doing for Halloween
-any fancy decorations you might have
XCVG's Excessively Complicated Arduino Based Serial Controllable Halloween Rig with Semi-integrated Video Surveillance
Some people go all out on Halloween. For most people, that means dressing up in a fairly lame costume. For a few people, that means dressing up in an extremely awesome costume. For some people, it means buying a bunch of decorations.
And for people like me, it means an electronics hacking project.
Awesome pumpkin! This one is actually a fake craft pumpkin. They are ridiculously expensive but I didn't pay for it. Lit up with my Phallic Object Halloween Pumpkin Light (red).
The Central Control and Power Distribution Unit. The yellow box houses two outlets and most of the AC wiring. The leftmost box contains the relays, haphazardly hot glued and point-to-point wired, the extremely ghetto perfboard relay driver, 120VAC, 12VDC, 5VDC and DC Common power buses, and a few LED drivers. The middle box houses the Arduino (actually a Freeduino SB), another type of distribution bus, and a bunch of wires. The last box houses 12V and 5V power supplies. The 12V supply is used for one relay and the LEDs, the 5V supply for some of the relays. The side boxes are dollar store food containers, the middle one is a deck screw container, and the yellow AC box is a proper box, mounted sideways.
This is why I really wish I had a laptop. That is an ancient, slow as Heck Pentium III desktop standing backwards on its side, and an even more ancient 15" CRT monitor. I used to love CRT monitors, then I loved LCDs and thought I could never go back, well, I could, but at an increased suicide risk. Anyway, the control unit is there and the fog machine harness is laying on the floor.
I don't have a picture of the various sensors, lights and things that plug in right now, but I can give you a mostly complete list.
-Control Unit: Described as above.
-Skull: Features lights and an old camcorder. Very ugly and ghetto looking.
-Wii Screen: Some of you might remember it. Used as a video monitor.
-phallic pumpkin light: Red, uses a 9V battery but has wired transistorized control. Yes, I know that is epic fail right there.
-reflector pumpkin light: Has a tinfoil reflector that tends to get bent and doesn't work that well. Transistors off board, in the control module. Purple.
-blue pumpkin light: Blue and built on a part from a coffeemaker (no, really!). Bright, no transistor (in control box), and smells like burnt coffee.
-simple motion sensor: Runs off 5V, 3-wire connection, works fairly well. I made a really crude housing/stand thing.
-"smart" motion sensor: Zdots SBC. What a piece of flax. Oversensitive and the sensitivity adjustment is awkward (though it may just be my implementation). Has a delay of 5 seconds before it turns back off (good for security purposes, absolute flax for my purposes). Requires 3.3V. I can't get it to work usably, so I'm not using it for this project.
-120V lights: Two 120V lights made from random boxes and ceiling fixtures. I'm putting a blacklight CFL in one and a standard blue "party" incandescent in the other. I may add a trouble light as well.
-flash unit: I took two disposable cameras and modified them a bit to charge automatically and be fired by a relay. I should have built a power supply, but I was lazy so I'm using AAs. I don't expect that to last very long.
-fog machine with chiller: A cheap "The Fog Machine" fog machine with a very hacked-up remote. The switch is replaced by wires to a relay and I glued a photocell over the light to sense when it is ready. Believe it or not, the photocell actually works.
-audio system: My crude amp. It has a noise problem but it'll do fine for this. For speakers I'm using some random crappy computer speakers. Sounds are played from the computer.
My program is pretty crude. Everything can be turned on and off from the serial terminal. I can set it on a few arbitrarily coded routines as well. The computer plays the sounds, but it is not automated. I have both loops and sound effects that I can play. Even the crappy PIII is fast enough to have the serial terminal open and play sounds at the same time.
And now, some random remarks:
-I should really buy wire. The stuff I have is either the wrong kind, or flax.
-Phone wire is difficult to strip, ugly, and has dubious current handling capability, but is really useful. I bought a 100 foot cable at a thrift store for $1.50.
-I need to find a way to automate the playing of sounds. I don't know what to code it in, though. I hear Processing is easy to use, and it gets plugged a lot in Arduino circles.
-One Arduino is great. Two Arduinos is better. I need another Arduino.
-Probably should have built a proper circuit board for the relay drivers. Also should have been more organized with the relays, but they are all random types.
-Running 5V relays at 9V is probably not a good idea. I haven't done it with this project... yet.
-I actually found an Eye Toy soon after setting up the camcorder and stuff. Cue swear words. I may use it in addition to the camcorder, maybe.
-Fog chillers need a lot of ice.
-Machine pin headers are flax for the most part. They mate well with machine pin SIP sockets, but don't mate well at all with normal female headers. I've had to redo a few cables because of these. I don't have a lot of headers left either.
While we're on the topic, why don't we discuss:
-Halloween costumes
-what you're doing for Halloween
-any fancy decorations you might have
