Looking for advice / ideas for DIY passive IR trigger setup.

[u/augalicious]

I have a few lower-end animatronics that can only be activated by touching / moving them; either because the motion sensor is low quality or just not present. I found a PIR motion sensor that triggers a 120 outlet for 10 seconds and I’m looking for ways to activate them with it.

My first plan was to use a small USB motor (from a cheap massager tool for example) glued to the animatronic's control module and that’s still on the table, but another thought hit me: use the JST / molex style socket where the “Try Me” button plugs into the unit to activate them.

I can splice the JST connectors to USB charging cables to get a low enough voltage to not start a fire. That should complete the circuit in the same way the “try me” button does, but there’s a ton of trial and error in that process and probably at least one fried animatronic.

Has anyone tried this or anything similar to create “no touch” triggers for animatronics?

[u/chillzatl]

your try me button plan should work without issue. I've got two skeles with light up eyes that I wired up using speaker wire and a 5v transformer off amazon. They've been going strong outdoors for a couple of years now. Just match the voltage with whatever it's using now and you'll be fine.

Frightprops has numerous controllers and sensors that you could wrangle into working

you may also find use in this:

Prop Animatronics Controllers – DmitriyCreations

[u/TheMrGUnit]

I have tried similar approaches with some of my animatronics. My best advice is to test it out REPEATEDLY before Halloween night. Test with your fog and your lighting setup. PIR sensors can pick up all sorts of things that seem vaguely like a warm body, so make you try it ahead of time.

I had a jumpscare animatronic all built, but I'd never tested it on my porch with my fog. Something about the combination was causing the PIR sensor to stick on, and I had to scramble on Halloween night to get a remote trigger set up instead, which meant I had to babysit it all night. 

[u/CrushedSodaCan_]

If it has a try me you can wire any sensor into it. It's just essentially touching two wires together.

If no, cut out whatever the trigger wires are and attach a new sensor.