PC Multiple Motion Detectors with Multiple Lights

[bobrpggamer]

I cannot seem to get this to work. I have 8 motion detectors and 8 dome lights plus another set of more lights. I have the power go to the 1st motion detector and I daisy chain the motion detectors and have them on a electric wire relay and . Then I have the lights on a separate electric wire relay, then I connect the motion detector electric wire relay to the light electric wire relay. This does not work for some reason and I have tried to hook 2 motion detectors to 1 light and that does not work. Daisy chaining the last motion detector to the first daisy chained light does not work either.

I am using: ElectricityLamps-0.7.3

So that may be it, i don't know.

I am trying to get lights to go on when I enter a room and stay on when I am in the room and turn off in 30 seconds after I leave the room. Does anyone know of a video tutorial on this?

 

[Old Crow]

I'm not sure it's possible to do what you're trying to do, precisely. The only thing I can think of is one motion detector going to all of the lights (assuming they're all in the same room), and have them set to stay on for a set amount of time. As long as you're in the room, the camera will keep reactivating the lights.

The problem here is the lights will continuously shut off and turn back on until you're out of the camera's field of view. The other option is to set teh camera to stay on once activated, but that won't turn the lights off when you leave.

Your best bet here is probably a manual power switch instead of a camera.

 

[theFlu]

Yeh, base game should allow for a "blinking" 30 secs by:

Cam - rel - light - light

JaWoodle made a little hacky looking system to turn things permanently on and then switch off, using two cameras.

Was mistakes here, see EDIT2.

Cam2 - Cam1 - rel - light - light

Cam1: Triggered and power duration "always"

Cam2: Triggered and duration "instant"

Cam1 turns everything on when it sees you once.

Cam2 does as well, but it functions as a turn off, as when you leave its vision, the power goes off. For some reason the Cam2 will reset the Cam1.

Point them away from one another so they don't see you at the same time to avoid confusion.

You won't get the 30 sec delay, but you get relatively stable on/off switching. And some delay can be achieved by putting the Cam2 further away - but it's still not a delay, just your own two feet being slow.

EDIT:

The 30 sec delay Might work with Cam2 set to 30 secs, but it also might not reset the system at all. I haven't tested either setup, so I stuck to mainly describing JaWoodle's contraption.

This is where he's setting it up, but he's using other triggers along the powered path as well, so it is a little more complicated in the vid:
https://youtu.be/p7YycYA3Mc8?t=952

EDIT2:

I have the cameras in the wrong order, the instant/always camera needs to be first in chain. I swapped cams 1 and 2 in the chain, so the text became correct.

 

[bobrpggamer]

Thanks guys. I figured I had to have all 8 cameras on me to track me around a room with a big closet in the middle. So when out of view they would shut off when leaving the camera views.

I unfortunately have 2 entrances to the room so it would be difficult to get by with 2 cameras. I need to have one at entrance one to turn on then leaving entrance two to shut them off and vice versa, this setup would be difficult and require 4 cameras in total.

I think I will just leave them on a switch. I honestly thought this would be easier to do in my head.

 

[theFlu]

I need to have one at entrance one to turn on then leaving entrance two to shut them off and vice versa, this setup would be difficult and require 4 cameras in total.

Give it a go, I'm curious

I would imagine that a setup of 4 cams would work as well as the two, I assume the two "always on"s will turn off just the same with either of the off cams - as long as they're all in the same "detector chain". If you need a "relay" between any of the cams, use another cam instead and it should be fine.

If you have two actual doorways:

Cam3 and Cam4 inside, above the doorways pointing down (for example). Triggered/Always.

Cam1 and Cam2 outside of the doors, similarly pointing down from above. Triggered/Instant. (Or Triggered/30 secs)

Generator - Cam1 - Cam2 - Cam3 - Cam4 - Lights.

Now, the order of the cams may be important, but one could try another order - depends on the coding, really. If the order doesn't matter, it's likely simpler to wire them from one end of the room to the other, but .. I can't guarantee anything

- IS important. And corrected now.

And for the relay cams, if needed:

The idea is to have "unresponsive" cameras (either blind or just set to never react) as cord extension. The above with a 2 part extension between 3 and 4 would be connected like:

Gen - Cam1 - Cam2 - Cam3 - Cam R - Cam R - Cam 4 - Lights.

Cam R's are the "mute" ones.

EDIT: mistakes were made, some repairs have been done

 

[bobrpggamer]

Give it a go, I'm curious

I would imagine that a setup of 4 cams would work as well as the two, I assume the two "always on"s will turn off just the same with either of the off cams - as long as they're all in the same "detector chain". If you need a "relay" between any of the cams, use another cam instead and it should be fine.

If you have two actual doorways:

Cam1 and Cam2 inside, above the doorways pointing down (for example). Triggered/Always.

Cam3 and Cam4 outside of the doors, similarly pointing down from above. Triggered/Instant. (Or Triggered/30 secs)

Generator - Cam1 - Cam2 - Cam3 - Cam4 - Lights.

Now, the order of the cams may be important, but one could try another order - depends on the coding, really. If the order doesn't matter, it's likely simpler to wire them from one end of the room to the other, but .. I can't guarantee anything

And for the relay cams, if needed:

The idea is to have "unresponsive" cameras (either blind or just set to never react) as cord extension. The above with a 2 part extension between 3 and 4 would be connected like:

Gen - Cam1 - Cam2 - Cam3 - Cam R - Cam R - Cam 4 - Lights.

Cam R's are the "mute" ones.

So how do I wire the cameras to (I know this is ridiculous) 18 lights. Should I put the lights on a relay and point the cameras at the relay or to the first daisy chained light.

So:  Gen - Cam 1 - Cam 2 - Cam 3 - Cam 4 (to first daisy chained light) I have tried putting 2 or more cameras to one light and it just negated the first one to the new one and did not work, or 1 camera to a lot of lights did not work also.

Or:  Gen - Cam 1 - Cam 2 - Cam 3 - Cam 4 (to one or two relays that have all the lights connected to it) This never worked for some reason.

I think I need a relay to hold all of the lights. The cameras can be daisy chained but they cannot be pointed at too many lights.

The main problem is putting 18 lights on more than 1 camera. I wasted an entire 24 hour game time cycle trying all these things to no avail. I could have been mining or wrenching cars instead.

I plan to do a walkthrough of my base soon so you know why I have 18 lights, but the base is about 80% complete and I want to finish all of it first.

 

[theFlu]

So how do I wire the cameras to (I know this is ridiculous) 18 lights.

Ridiculous? Not at all. Ambitious at worst

Shouldn't be an issue, basically, where I wrote "Lights" you can put whatever load items, as many as you like. More triggers may make things confusing, but the point of JaWoodle's build was to reset trip wires for traps and it worked, so even those should be fine.

18 lights may require a little extra thinking; I think the limit for connections "out" from one relay is limited to .. 5 or 10, not sure atm. But as long as you don't cross that or the other normal rules for electricity, you can do whatever. 18 lights in series, or five relays in series, each feeding 4 lights separately.

The cameras can be daisy chained but they cannot be pointed at too many lights.

By "pointed at", I'll take you mean "connected to"? Pointing sounds like setting the trigger area and you wouldn't point it at a light in that case. Yeah, the same outgoing connections limit applies to cams, you won't get a single line out to each light from one cam.. but a daisy chain aka "in series" should feed fine.

So either:

(The previous cam setup)  -  Relay1 - R2 - R3 - R4 - R5

Each R feeding another R and 4 lights -  if you want one line per light.

Or just

(The previous cam setup)  -  Light1 - L2 - L3 - L4 - ... - L18.

Should work.. start simple and test while building. Keep the power on while connecting, pretty sparks, but no harm ..

Also, lights are 5W each, I think, so make sure you have enough power in your genny.

 

[theFlu]

Had a little test. On the bad news -side:

Darnit, I made a mistake earlier.

Gen - Cam1 - Cam2 - Cam3 - Cam4 - (load)

It looks like the "off" cameras need to be first in the chain, so 1 and 2 Need to be set to Instant/Triggered, then 3 and 4 can be Instant/Always.

On the good news -side:

I did manage to get the setup working. 4 cams, 18 lights, two virtual doorways with cams pointing down. 18 daisy chained lights. 110W power draw, so three engines minimum.

I also added a mute camera between cams one and two, just to test the extension, seemed to work fine.

 

[bobrpggamer]

Had a little test. On the bad news -side:

Darnit, I made a mistake earlier.

Gen - Cam1 - Cam2 - Cam3 - Cam4 - (load)

It looks like the "off" cameras need to be first in the chain, so 1 and 2 Need to be set to Instant/Triggered, then 3 and 4 can be Instant/Always.

On the good news -side:

I did manage to get the setup working. 4 cams, 18 lights, two virtual doorways with cams pointing down. 18 daisy chained lights. 110W power draw, so three engines minimum.

I also added a mute camera between cams one and two, just to test the extension, seemed to work fine.

OK, I am a bit confused, so I will try with ASCII to see if I get it.

>> = connect to next

> = daisy chain

Camera 1 = Off Camera

Camera 2 = Off Camera

Camera 3 = Instant Always

Camera 4 = Instant Always

(The dummy cameras act as relays because camera 1 and camera 2 are the furthest apart and the same with camera 3 and camera 4)

So:

Light 1-8 >> Relay 1

Light 9-18 >> Relay 2

GEN >> Camera 1 > Dummy Camera > Camera 2 > Camera 3 > Dummy Camera  > Camera 4 [Camera 4 >> Relay 1] [Camera 4 >> Relay 2 ]

Or I am just being confusing.

It is night 167 with blood moon coming at 168, so I have to choose wisely what I do tonight and tomorrow (in game). After blood moon I will try what you suggest.

Thank you for helping by the way.

 

[bobrpggamer]

OK so I tried you formula and it kind of worked, the only problem I had was there was a flicker of about a second going in. going out worked perfectly.

The problem I have is the doorways I just have a open staircase that goes to the second floor that is completely open, so I can just slip down from the top floor down to the bottom floor. There is no real doorway just a staircase and I have odd frame shapes on the ceiling so above the staircase so I cannot put a camera right above it. I have to add it to a wall across the room, which I think caused the flickering.

I can still use it for two other rooms that is on one level, and now I know how to make it work, so thank you.

 

[theFlu]

OK so I tried you formula and it kind of worked, the only problem I had was there was a flicker of about a second going in.

Great! Glad to be of help

I had a bit of a flicker as well. As the off-cams turn the lights on when coming in, and the on-cams won't see me at the time, the flicker happens when walking between the two fields of view. It might be eliminated by adding a short power duration on the off cams. Instant / 1 sec, or something so the off-cam keeps the lights on until the on-cams see you. But it also may just bug the system, as the off-cam might turn the lights off anyway after the delay - I didn't try it.

But it's a whole lot easier than switches as is, so I count it as a win