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need help designing a circuit for a motion sensored sound effect generator

i have just began a project at creating a new sound effect generator for a childrens play area which uses electronic motion sensors already built into the play area and runs off a mains power supply can someone help with this? :confused:
 
Maybe, but you need a detailed description of what you want to do, as much info on the sensors as you can provide, the number of sensors, what is the mains voltage 110 or 220 ? And you will need specific questions that you desire help with after that point, what you have provided is a very generic description that is nearly impossible for someone to help you with...
 
well its running off the mains which is i beleive 240v and the connections from the sensors are 6 pin plug and the speackers have 6mm jack which they run off. there are 4 sensors and 4 speackers. i need it to play sounds which i can easily download of a computer so the kids dont get bored of the same old sounds each time they visit.
 
i beleive its 240v down to something as the power goes through a transformer befor going to the circuits which was the original one but im trying to make a new one which will work better as that one no longer works.
 
have you any pics or circuit diagrams that you can put up of the sensors and all the apparatus that you have? and the power supply? that you have. would be handy.
 
OK so now we have established it plugs into 240v outlet, now what is it actually doing? How many sensors, what are the sensors sensing, what is the result of a positive sense? You need to help us before we can even begin to help you...
 
welll they are the basic motion sensor units which can be bought from b&q really
 

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OK you have trickled in a little more info, keep it flowing...

So tell me if I'm right...

1. You have 4 PIR motion sensors
2. You have multiple DSU200 boards? WTF are these? Are they sound repeaters?
3. You have a power supply, that has been bashed together, any info on it? What is it powering?
4. You have a wiring nightmare
5. You have 4 speakers, that attach by 1/4" mono plugs, what are they attached to?
6. You have 6 pin connectors that go from ??? to ??? and how many of the conductors are used and what are they used for?
7. You want to gut this system and replace it
8. You have a pet spider...

I suspect that you want a device that plays a certain sound when a particular PIR sensor it tripped? Does this sound repeat as long as there is movement detected (aka loop) or is it a play once and time out for a set period before it will re-trigger? The 4 sounds played by the system should be easy to swap out and change at will... Amplification? Space constraints? Duration (max) of the sounds? Budget?

Toss me something here...
 
1. yes
2. i assume they are single sound repeators as i have never seen them inuse this is a system which was left to me to sort out from an old busines owner
3. the power supply is a transformer from a 240 volt mains supply.
5 the epeackers go into the curcuit bords via connection under neath 6 pin plug for sensors.
6 the 6 pin plugs go from the curcuit to the motion sensors.
7. i wanna probably try and build a new one just thought this would give u a gd idea of what i wanted but its a shitty one off design.

what i want is a single sound to play when the pir seonsor is tripped and only play once and the shut down until the sensor is tripped again. amplification is limated to the speakers as it is in the middle of lots of houses so we dont want it to loud we dont have space constraints as i build the box as big as is needed and can place it anywhere. duration of the sounds wil only be like 1 or 2 seconds each as its a playkingdon so lots of little children will be running past during the day my bugget is less the £100 if possible but not really looked how much parts are.
 
i presume the pir sensors have 6 pins on them or do they only have 3, if they have 6 pins i would think that there is two power inputs and two negative and 2 output connections feeding the one plug to the circuitry from the PIR.??

or else there a special type pir sensor?
 
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what i want is a single sound to play when the pir seonsor is tripped and only play once and the shut down until the sensor is tripped again.

The issue is that the PIR sensor is not a single trip, it's going to trip and continue to trip as it senses motion... That is why I'm asking about a delay, if you just want each track to complete and then if there is still movement play again that isn't a problem... But, in this case a single kid might trip it multiple times if he/she doesn't move out of the PIR detection area...

amplification is limated to the speakers as it is in the middle of lots of houses so we dont want it to loud

Voice level talking? Shouting? Give me an idea, also your speaker specifications...

we dont have space constraints as i build the box as big as is needed and can place it anywhere.

That really helps lower cost...

duration of the sounds wil only be like 1 or 2 seconds each

This again potentially lowers cost, dependent on the playback device...

my bugget is less the £100 if possible but not really looked how much parts are.

That is really tight for a custom 4 sound playback system, not saying it can't be done but you might not get exactly what you want if trying to hold that budget, I'm guessing you will get something really sub-par of what you expect... Basically you are only budgeting £20 a playback unit, with the remaining £20 for a new power supply and misc... That really isn't going to get you far on a custom solution, I doubt it will even cover the cost of components and PC board manufacturing... You would really need to kit bash some using low cost over the counter parts (if you can find them) to hold that price...

Do you have any experience and/or are you going at building this yourself or do you want to purchase something that is pretty much ready to go with a few plugs?

I would love to help you out, but I'm doubtful that I can within that budget making 4 sound playback devices that cheap isn't easy without really knowing what you are doing, and using over the counter cheap Mp3 players bashed to work still needs a lot of tinkering and might not really be reliable at the end of the day and from what I guess would still be pushing your £100 budget before it's done...

On the flip side, I would love to help make/deliver a custom circuit for you as it would be a fun build, but even with the favorable £ to $ conversion I just can't see it happening...

And last but not least if this system was at one time working, you might be able to get it working again... Might not be what you want but it might buy you enough time to budget more money for a better replacement down the line... The first thing you would need to do if this is your course is to take them DSU200 and give them a bath in some soapy water and let them dry, so we can maybe get an idea what they are...
 
ok so three pins are connected power negative and output.

pins 1, 2 and 3.

and you only want to use one sensor? with a different piece of circuitry?
 
i agree cocacola. but my question for jammac is for this project, do all 4 sensors have to be connected in order for the original control box for the sounds to work i wonder? just posing that question!! what you intended to do firstly might not be able to do but at least if the original works it will save you money.! if u r familiar with electronics and things, i definately would try and fix original i.e. if there is something wrong with it!!!
 
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right so the sensor wants to finish the playing then have a 2 second time delay before setting off again. the old system is completely nackered and iv had someone trained look at it and they carnt get it working iagain. it wiill want to be shouting level. i can build it my self in my spare time thats the easy part. the money will cost what it costs what i really need is a circuit design and how it all works so i can then start getting the parts so i can slowly build it in what little free time i have.

it is one sensor and speaker per circuit so that each can play a diffrent ound as its a freddys playkingdom it wants to have wind, dragon, ghost, and one other which is kids freindly.
 
i can build it my self in my spare time thats the easy part. the money will cost what it costs what i really need is a circuit design and how it all works so i can then start getting the parts so i can slowly build it in what little free time i have.

The problem with this is that I personally don't know (and I have looked quite extensively) of a DIY audio solution 'chip' that has decent quality sound for the hobbyist... There are certainly cheap digital recorders out there and the ISD (Winbond) chips but they sound is IMO horrible, it's just barely legible human speech, pure garbage for sound effects, unless you want it to sound like a cheap toy... There are DIY MP3 players and the sorts but they are not what I would consider 'newbie' or inexperienced friendly, and they can be quite costly to build in the end...

This leaves you will limited options to DIY, the only real suggestion I can give is to hack some cheap MP3 players, but even doing this is really not that easy, you need to build a front end to run the player that mimics a human (aka pretend to press play, next or what not buttons) as you really have no chance of hacking the proprietary firmware that is running the device... This approach is certainly doable but it will take a lot of tinkering by you, and it might or might not work the first time... So you might have to revisit new purchases or new plans trying to get it to work the 2nd or 3rd time around... Also there are 1001 cheap MP3 players out there with few being the same, so although some of us might be able to help with some of your questions and an overview of what needs to be done we would really not be able to assist you very far in the details unless we had detailed knowledge of the devices you purchased... Heck you might be lucky, maybe someone will know the ins and outs of the MP3 player and know exactly how to interface a front end to it that works well, but I wouldn't hold my breath :(

Unfortunately all 'my' audio playback designs are proprietary and I have used and will continue to use them in commercial devices so I can't just give them out to the public for a DIY project as I have a financial interest in them...

Another thing to consider is the fact you want the sounds to be easily changeable... This works with an over the counter mp3 player in a DIY solution as they have a computer interface, basically plug and play in that regard... But for a complete DIY solution (or customs solution) this can really complicate the design as you will need to write the computer front end, or use removable storage like a USB drive or flash card that would drive the cost up... And again we don't have much of a budget to do this...

I'm not trying to scare you away from doing it yourself, but I just see it really be a complicated task because there really isn't any user friendly options out there for DIY audio playback... You are not going to simply whip up an audio player circuit without at minimum having a decent grasp of writing code for a microchip to act as the brains of the entire system...
 
im not looking forsomething to make a profit from i just need a circuit design which i can use so we can have the edge over other indoor play areas and if u was to patant the design then i wouldnt be able to sell it off anyway. or how much are you offering your circuits built and ready for use?
 
I never implied you would sell it, and sorry if I gave that impression, the short of it my firmware and audio circuits are not for pubic consumption...

As for cost of me doing it for you, off the top of my head I would hesitate giving numbers without more details... I can certainly attempt to work with you, and try to use as much of your old system as we could so that you can save cost but only within reason... I won't charge you full price like a professional design firm but I still need to cover my bases and out of pocket... I would likely aim to just make you the 4 sound boards, letting you tinker with hooking up the sensors and speakers (of course I would try to make this as painless as possible) as well as sourcing your own power supply, housing and what not... But, we would have to hammer out the details of the sound modules in more detail..

I have a very cost effective short duration sound circuit that might work well here (limited to about 5 seconds), the quality isn't all that great but it's suitable and IMO better than many other cheap solutions... I have attached a 'growl' down sampled to about the quality that would be reproduced on this cheaper design, notice at this quality it's kinda flat sounding, and there is a what you could call a background 'hiss' to the sound... Not the best sound but if something like this is suitable vs 'CD' or MP3 quality and you are OK with being limited to that give or take 5 seconds of playback, we might be able to keep the cost way down... If you have audio editing software on your computer you can down sample some of your own sounds to 11025 kHz to get an idea what they might sound like with my cheap audio circuit... I can also do all the way up to CD quality playback but the cost climbs significantly, and I'm trying to offer a cost effect option to you...
 

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