Home Haunter Needs Buying Advice

[Pantseatflyer]

Been a home haunter for about 10 years now.  Started with an FCG and finally added a pneumatic pop up last year that I controlled with an x-10 type device.  I had an cheap MP3 player playing looped through powered speakers as well as a strobe on my pop-up.  I used the remote to trigger the whole shebang when a TOT'er walked up via my infrared spy cam.

I would like to take it up a notch this year.  I know that time is short, but I learn quick (C# and .NET programming knowledge).

Without digging a gigantic hole, I wanted to start out small this year with a Prop-1 or Prop-2 controller. 

All I would like to attempt this year is power a fog machine and possibly two spot lights triggered by infrared.

I am leaning toward a Prop-1 Starter Kit with RC-4 to power the spots.  Of course, I will need several of the Crydom SSR's.

I also wanted to have a couple each of the ULN2803A as well as the ULN2003A and enough 3-pin cables to boot.

Is this a good start?  Am I missing anything?

Thanks for all your help!

[livinlowe]

As long as:
- You are closing the "fog on" switch with the Prop-1, not "powering" the fog machine. You wouldn't want to do that anyways(because of the heat up time)

The spots triggered by a PIR (infrared) is very easily accomplished with a starter kit, a RC-4 and a couple of PIR sensors. I think you will be good to go!

FYI - A prop 2 can send X-10 signals as well, so you might want to consider it since you have some X-10 controlled stuff.

[Pantseatflyer]

Are the programming language differences between the Prop-1 and Prop-2 minimal as far as a learning curve?

I do like the idea of powering x-10 controllers.. :)

[JonnyMac]

PBASIC 1 and PBASIC 2 a very similar with some minor syntax changes.  Your biggest challenge is going to be living with 14 bytes of user RAM in the BS1 (Prop-1)... folks that come from a PC programming background usually struggle with this at first.

As Shawn points out you can use Crydom relays to "press" the fogger remote; I've done this a bunch of times.  You need to leave it powered on so that it will shoot fog when you want it too.

I wouldn't mess around with X-10.  Yes, the Prop-2 can send X-10 commands but you need an interface to do it and that's a horid protocol -- skip it.  Once you know exactly how you want your program to work post a request in the associated forum (Prop-1 or Prop-2) and I'll write the first one for you; it won't take you long at all to get the hang of things.

[Pantseatflyer]

Most Excellent!!

Time to go fill up the cart and click submit!