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A most unusual Camera. Switching on a circuit based on the state of another.

Wombat

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Aug 5, 2023
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St Ives, Cambridgeshire
Hi all,
Total electronics noob here, but wanting to learn.
I want to add a camera toy to my TZ and I've picked up a keyring that looks like the camera on the playfield which has an LED in the lower lens that flashes with an auto-wind sound play when a button is pressed. My plan is to add an LED to the upper lens and have this light up when 'the camera' feature is active (easy enough to do by taping into the playfield camera light), but 'd also like to have the flash/sound play when the camera switch (switch 42) is activated when the camera feature is ON, but otherwise not. How would I go about this ? I've attached some pics of the toy if it helps.

Thanks in advance,
Simon.
 

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Isn‘t there a flasher or something activated when camera mode is active and 42 is closed?
 
Really depends on voltage required for the item you want to switch on, and also the current it might take, assuming very low. If the voltage is the same then you should be able to add that toy to whichever light you want to use to switch it.
If the voltage is different then you’ll need to use a relay with a coil which matches the voltage of the switching circuit, and feed the toy with whatever voltage it needs off the power supply/transformer. Always fit an inline fuse to the item, power divide by volts. to determine amps.

You’re essentially then using one voltage to switch another via the relay, neither voltage comes into contact with one another.
 
Isn‘t there a flasher or something activated when camera mode is active and 42 is closed?
Yes there is, there a camera mod that on the twighlight zone I currently have, the camera flashes when the camera playfield light flashes, it's connected via bull dog clips to the flasher, I can dig out some pics of it connected when I next delve under the machine. Can't comment on how it's done 😀
 
If you have lights or flashers active when you want your toy active you can build a simple logic circuit driving the switch on your device. Getting something from the switch matrix is more complicated as you need to emulate the matrix.
 
Pretty easy to do to be honest. Will need to put a 4.5v supply into it. Take the 5v off the power driver board - by the time it gets to the playfield thru the cable it will be 4.5v after volt drop.

Find the flasher it triggers from and connect a low level trigger relay to it that shorts the switch on that camera.

It does look like the LED and the sound triggers at the same time in that toy. It may be hard to split that.

What you have to consider too is how will you hear the sound when you get it under a playfield glass?

You can get PCBs that trigger 'samples' - I use them - but you have to then get that signal into the audio board, which if you are a noob will be pretty difficult.


Just buy this for under £80.

It is a lot simpler !!!!

 
Thanks all for your input on this.
The toy is powered by 4.5v (3x button cells @ 1.5v).
I figured lighting the additional LED I‘ll add to the cameras top lens when ‘the camera’ is active will be simple enough by taking a jump from the camera playfield light (lamp 55). I want this to be a constant light rather than flashing so all good here I think (I understand I'll need to add a load resistor). This would also power the camera toy itself.

For flash/sound of the toy to be played only when the camera is active and switch 42 closed and I was thinking to use this switch , but I'm not sure it will be this straight forward. I'm not bothered about hearing the sound it makes, as it's been pointed out I would not be able to hear it very well anyway, but as part of the exercise the button on the toy needs to be pressed for a second or so for the full light/sound effect to play out. Searching around on Youtube has given some ideas - namely a npn 2222 transistor/555 timing chip combinaton, we'll see..

Thanks again.
 
Just be aware you can‘t drive it from the switch as this is part of 5he switch matrix. Need to find a lamp or flasher.
 
Just be aware you can‘t drive it from the switch as this is part of 5he switch matrix. Need to find a lamp or flasher.
Hi 'hex and thanks,
Yes, I now realise this and why i didn't think it would be so straight forward. Unfortunately I don't see any flashers fire when the camera is triggered so I think this part of my idea is a dead duck. Anyone who knows different please chip in.

I think I'll have to change my plan for the flash on the toy to fire once when camera playfield light is lit along with the lighting of the 2nd LED.

Thanks again,
Simon.
 
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