I've posted this on other forums looking for a solution that does not involve Arduino, maybe it does not need to but beings as I have not a clue what I'm doing, I'm pretty much looking for full on help here.
What I'm starting with is a cheap horn that we previously had setup with a push button to activate, just like in a car.
I'd now like to move this to a motion triggered setup where the sensor triggers the relay to blast the horns in some type of pattern.
Here's the original setup: http://i.imgur.com/DJXWdfh.png
This is going to be outdoors but it SHOULD be dry and only a once a year Halloween type thing. I already have an Arduino uno, some transistors, resistors, capacitors and 555 timers but I hope I may not need some of this using the Arduino.
Can I take input from either a cheap motion sensor off Amazon or possibly go back to trying to get my wireless driveway alrter to make this work? The driveway alert thing has a 1.5v output off the LED's which blink on a half second on/off pattern, 3 times. That might make the programming easier if I can figure out how to wire that LED output.
Like I previously mentioned, I have a standard idea of how electronics work but I may need a pretty guided hand in setting this up.
I've I need to post more or have posted this in the wrong area, let me know.
I would have thought that a standard PIR activated security light would do most of what you want. It would certainly enable you to have a motion-activated horn. What it wouldn't do is blast the horns in 'some type of pattern'. How you would achieve that would depend on what sort of horns, how many of them and what sort of pattern(s) you wanted to support. Perhaps instead of horns you might think in terms of a pre-recorded sequence of notes and a powerful amplifier?
PeterH:
I would have thought that a standard PIR activated security light would do most of what you want. It would certainly enable you to have a motion-activated horn. What it wouldn't do is blast the horns in 'some type of pattern'. How you would achieve that would depend on what sort of horns, how many of them and what sort of pattern(s) you wanted to support. Perhaps instead of horns you might think in terms of a pre-recorded sequence of notes and a powerful amplifier?
I've already got the horns setup, all I need is the Arduino to trigger the relay so I'd think, if setup properly, it shouldn't be much of of a problem? What is the worry about using these horns? I'll be doing this all in a remote area with only a 12v battery so I'm trying to keep it as minimalist as possible.
PeterH:
In that case why don't you connect the relay directly to the PIR output?
How would I control the output? The horns would just constantly go off as motion was detected. What I'd want to do is trigger an on/off sequence once the motion is triggered, then either hold or repeat once motion is detected again.
Yes, you would need some smarts between the PIR and the horn in that case and an Arduino would be one way to do it.
If you can put up with a simple fixed sequence and don't need to remember any state once the sequence has ended then you could just code the Arduino to operate the relay in a fixed sequence, and power it from a mains voltage that is supplied via the PIR. This avoids needing to interface any dangerous mains voltage circuits directly with your Arduino.
If you need more control than that it would probably be best to use just the sensing element from the PIR and interface to it directly so that this part of it doesn't require a mains voltage supply at all. I haven't done that myself but it's something that has been described on these forums many times in the past and I'm sure that Google would find some worked examples to show what's involved.
