Hi everyone,
The attached link describes the functionality of the toy, but here's a summary of it anyway. Zip zap is a lap timer for toy race cars made by Radioshack. It consists of 2 pairs of IR sensors. Every time the 1st IR beam, followed by the 2nd beam, is disrupted, the counter would start counting - until the car passes the 1st and 2nd set of IR again. What's interesting is that whenever any IR beam is disrupted, a Red LED on top of the timer would light up, then off again, when the beam touches the photocell again. The camera flash is triggered by a short circuit (by means of a mono audio jack or a hotshoe).
Based on Pete's blog, I should be able to just replace the LED on top of the zip zap counter with a 3.5mm mono audio female jack (since the LED circuitry would be o/c when the IR beam is not disrupted and s/c when IR beam is disturbed). My multimeter is reading continuity as expected, but the flash isn't flashing. He mentioned a diode in his blog, but I'm not sure what is it used for. Does anyone have any advice on what else I can try?
http://petetek.blogspot.com/2010/02/299-laser-trigger.html
The attached link describes the functionality of the toy, but here's a summary of it anyway. Zip zap is a lap timer for toy race cars made by Radioshack. It consists of 2 pairs of IR sensors. Every time the 1st IR beam, followed by the 2nd beam, is disrupted, the counter would start counting - until the car passes the 1st and 2nd set of IR again. What's interesting is that whenever any IR beam is disrupted, a Red LED on top of the timer would light up, then off again, when the beam touches the photocell again. The camera flash is triggered by a short circuit (by means of a mono audio jack or a hotshoe).
Based on Pete's blog, I should be able to just replace the LED on top of the zip zap counter with a 3.5mm mono audio female jack (since the LED circuitry would be o/c when the IR beam is not disrupted and s/c when IR beam is disturbed). My multimeter is reading continuity as expected, but the flash isn't flashing. He mentioned a diode in his blog, but I'm not sure what is it used for. Does anyone have any advice on what else I can try?
http://petetek.blogspot.com/2010/02/299-laser-trigger.html