Well, I woke up on Thanksgiving Day feeling pretty good and looking forward to traveling to see the family and giving thanks for friends and food. I needed to process some pictures for pending blog posts (including this one) and opted to get those out of the way before loading up the car. Soon after that my morning went sour. My Western Digital 2T MyBook was no longer responding. This was my working storage for my photography work. We have a raided NAS for the long term storage, but the MyBook is where my active processing happens. Unplug USB and replug into computer – nothing. Cycle power on disk – nothing. Reboot computer and plug everything back in – nothing. Curse it, punch it, kick it, shoot it – nevermore. Now I’m pissed not just because I now have to restore 1.3T of photographs, but now I have to scramble for images for the blog. Luckily the shots for this planned post were still on the camera cards. Saved for now, but long hours of bit transfers ahead and some shopping on Amazon to acquire some new NAS units – damn you Western Digital.
Let’s stop whining and get to the post shall we. Today we are going to talk about the latest Halloween project. If you are like Linda you just said “Why the hell are you working on Halloween projects, it’s more than 300 days away!” I strike when the iron is hot which translates to “do it while the idea is still in your head and besides, every year I am scrambling to get things done ahead of the big party anything that can be done now helps. The latest addition to the Haunted Trail is motion detectors that can be used to trigger my scary props. This is something I’ve wanted to do since starting the trail, but the units for sale seemed a tad too expensive. I had no idea how easy it was to make your own until a little web investigation. I want to give full credit to the originator of this idea (not sure if he was the originator, but his tutorial on the web was excellent! It can be found on YouTube (link here) or on Pinterest (yeah, I said it). His approach is very straight forward but he does admittedly make a few mistakes which makes the 20 minute video slightly longer than it needed to be. The first one may take a little longer to get familiar with the process, but after you do one you should be able to crank them out in 10 to 15 minutes depending on your skills in the electrical discipline. Here is a look at the finished product.
I made a small tweak to the design having confirmed that the metal spikes that screw into the box cannot be found anywhere. Here are the materials and tools that were needed to complete the build process:
- Motion detector replacement ($16 at Menards)
- 5 way outdoor electrical box (~$4)
- Outdoor receptacle cover (~$2.50)
- Standard 15V outlet ($0.60)
- 1/2 inch wire clamp
- Electrical box PVC adaptor ($0.25)
- Computer power cable or small extension cord
- Wire nuts
- 1/2 electrical PVC – length dependent on high off the ground you want the sensor)
- Volt meter (optional depending on your power cord)
- Wire cutters
- Needle nose pliers
- Philips screwdriver (possibly a standard one depending on your screw situation)
- Electrical tape
- Utility knife
- A piece of 12-2 gauge solid wire (optional)
Hit the jump to see how to put this thing together
Life Intrigued 