For "Spring 2007" AllElectronics has IR motion detectors for $11.75. They come with instructions - run on 12v. CAT # IRD-12

I use AllElectronics all the time - very reliable and quick delivery.

http://www.allelectronics.com

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Electronic Goldmine has these PIR units for half that price. I've used several of them myself and they work great. They work with a 9 volt battery.
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.co...p?number=G4567

Nice! Probably easy to hardwire to a 9v supply to eliminate the battery.

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Wait... Did you hear that?

do these motion detectors have plugs in the back of them so you can hook them up to a prop?

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Is It Halloween Yet?

Austin--The PIR from Electronic Goldmine comes with instructions showing where you need to solder two wires on the circuit bd. inside the PIR. Those wires would hook to the prop or relay you want to trigger.
I used one of these last Halloween to trigger my Opening Tombstone and the bubble machine inside my witch cauldron and the setup worked perfectly.

Dave-
So................................
once i solder the wires on the circuit board, the wire also need to be soldered to my plug for the prop, right? So i would also need to cut the plug?
CONFUSED? MUCH?
Im So Technically Retarted.
Haha.

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Is It Halloween Yet?

Well, it's a bit more involved than that. The two wires that would come from the PIR have only enough power to maybe light one LED for a few seconds or trigger one of those Radio Shack sound recorders to start. The PIR basically becomes your on/off switch for those things. To make it turn on bigger props, like I used mine for, those wires have to be hooked to a RELAY and the relay is hooked to your prop. Forum member Otaku posted a how-to last year on building a relay/timer/PIR unit using this same PIR. Just to warn you, it's a pain to build (but worth it) and you need to order several electronic components and be able to solder fairly well to do it.

Austin, the how-to for hacking the PIR and building the timer board is here:

http://www.*******************/Gary%27s%20.htm

The PIR as-is has two "off" or reset intervals, 15 secs and 15 mins. Not too useful, so I found the pins on the ripple timer chip that give it 30 sec and 60 sec reset intervals. As Dave said, it's a bit of work to do the hack, but not overly difficult. The timer board that is used with the PIR is also easy to make, and lets you fire two devices at the same time. I use 9 volt batteries with mine as I like the portability. Check the how-to and let me know if you have questions. Dave is also a good resource, having built some of these himself.

P.S. Not trying to hijack, but should this thread turn into a discussion on building this controller, it should probably be moved to Props.

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But now is the end of days, and I am the Reaper!

Dark Alessa