# Motion Sensor / Power Strip .. Hack



## beelce

OK folks....many of you have asked me for a how-to on my MOTION SENSOR / POWER STRIP hack...so here it is...
PLEASE LET IT BE KNOWN THAT I KNOW VERY LITTLE ABOUT ELECTRICITY....about enough to really get myself in trouble, I'm not even that sure why this thing works so well. So please be very careful and ask a real electrician to help you. I don't want anyone to fry the pizz out of themselves or the tots that show up at your haunts. PLEASE BE CAREFUL ! ! !


















Got all of this at Home Depot. Cost about $35.

















I like to use this type of power strip because it's metal and easy to take apart and put back together. Also has surge protection, an on/off switch, and power on light


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## beelce

I am not going to give you a blow by blow verbal description of this wiring, but I will tell you that all the wiring set-up is in the directions that came with the motion sensor.
The bottom line is that you are going to splice in a new type of switch (which is the motion sensor) into the on/off power strip switch. In the end both switches will work.



















Make room for the sensor by taking out the last receptacle


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## beelce

I use 3M reflective decal material to seal the front and back of the holes after I take out the receptacle. I know most people do not have the material so you will just have to figure that out on your own. (Maybe stop by a sign shop and ask nicely for a few scraps of vinyl decal material)

























I needed this large washer to hold the sensor securely on the strip


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## beelce

Find the wires that go through the switch and cut them open to splice in the new switch (which is the motion detector)
all the wiring set-ups are in the directions that came with the motion sensor.


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## beelce




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## beelce

This is the setting that I use on all my power strips...The "test" mode turns the strip on for 7 seconds.








After you make all your splices, set the sensor and test the strip. (you can see the both power on lights)









I now have 6 of these plus another type that uses 2 wireless sensors to turn on a power strip.


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## Sickie Ickie

Incredible how to! Simple, concise and lots of photos to help! My hats off to you, and your fabulous technique.


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## Haunted Bayou

So the motion sensor triggers whatever is plugged into the strip?


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## beelce

Hey thanks Sickie!! ...You still going to make one?

Haunted Bayou...yes the sensor will turn the power on and off anything that is plugged into the strip...up to 500 watts


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## Sickie Ickie

yes I am. And maybe more. I'm going to use the cheap plastic ones methinks.


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## Terrormaster

Beelce, do you think electrical wholesalers would carry the 3M reflective tape? I used to work for a local one in CT before they were bought out by Rexel and still have a few contacts there. And even if they're gone, they have a public sales counter.

-TM


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## Otaku

Great how-to, beelce. Excellent pix. SI, if you use the plastic power strips with the sockets molded in the cover you'll find that the sockets are all connected by copper bus rails, not wires. I tried the same thing with the flicker strip hack, and would have ended up with all the sockets running the same flicker rate. beelce's hack will certainly work with the molded strips but you may not have room to mount the sensor on the strip.


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## beelce

Terrormaster- You could probably find the reflective tape in any number of retail spots, but really you can use anything you want to cover the holes (cardboard, plastic, rubber, metal, wood....try not to use things like deli meats or cucumbers)...Really I just wanted to cover the holes fast and easy and I have reflective vinyl on hand....An added benefit of the reflective vinyl, is that it is easier for me to find the strips in my woods at night with a flashlight.

Thanks Otaku...Yes I have butchered a plastic strip trying to hack it and it ended up in the parts box


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## buckaneerbabe

Thank you Beelce!!! I have been very patiently or maybe not so patiently waiting for this. I'm going to put together at least two of these just as soon as I complete my current project. You did a very simple how to that even I can understand. 

I have just one question though, I should be able to extend the sensor with longer wires and maybe a short stand of some kind so that the power strip could be inside my coffin and the sensor outside right? Maybe make a hole in the bottom of my coffin and run the sensor through that way?


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## Hallowennie315

Wow these are great for..... everything! Thanks beelce - im gonna make me some of these!


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## dynoflyer

Very nice how-to, even I can make one now. ;-)


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## beelce

Buckaneerbabe...you have been more than patient waiting for me to make it happen... My question to you is- why do you need to have an extension for the motion sensor? Just put the whole unit outside the coffin and let the power cords come through the coffin out to the power strip/sensor. I usually cable tie my sensor/strips to a metal post that I drive in the ground. 

Hallowennie315 and Dynoflyer.... thanks much


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## buckaneerbabe

Beelce, I was just trying to hide the electronics if possible. There isn't any bushes around when we do our camping and if at all possible I would like to have it hidden. Since I plan to make at least 2 (bought my sensors today) I will experiment a little on one to see if what I have in mind will work.


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## beelce

OK I got ya...Sure I think you can extend the sensor wire...let me know how it works.


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## scourge999

Here's one I made a couple of years ago. It's the same concept without the power strip. I made it to have a power strip plug into it so it could easily be hung anywhere. It's very easy to make. Everything you need is at your local home store. 1 cord, 1 motion detector, 1 strain relief, 1 junction box and wire nuts. Motion detectors are a killer way to scare the crap out of people.


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## beelce

Nice Scourge! Simple and effective...Do you use the test mode or do you go for minutes?


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## scourge999

I used the one minute setting. It was for a talking grim reaper that welcomed people into the house.


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## dynoflyer

Beelce, that's really a great how-to, thanks! Even I could follow those directions. 

Just call me "sparky" ;-)


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## ubzest

Ya know I think these are great, and I even bought a few motion sencers over the last 2 years.But I haven used any of it yet. what do you guys have that uses this electric set-up. now that I think of it ,all I have is lights and everything elce is batteries. waaa.
I love the how -to, with all the pics.


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## beelce

Ubzest, I use them to control whole scenes. My haunt is a haunted woods walk thru...people walk down a dark trail and pow, out of nowhere a crazy scene pops on for a full 7 seconds. Then everything goes off an leaves them standing there in the dark with their mouths open. When someone activates a sensor everything in that scene turns on. Usually includes things like- LEDs, spot lights, background lights, fans, motors...anything that you can plug into the sensor strip will turn on and off for you.


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## beelce

Buckaneerbabe...here is a wireless sensor that is much easier to hide.










I used a 25' extension cord with a receiver receptacle in the box on the end. With this system you can use multiple sensors up to 100' away from the power strip. The sensors are battery powered, so you can put them anywhere. 
Only the red side of the receptacle will turn on and off by sensor (the white side is always on), but you can control up to 1800 watts.
All parts from Home Depot


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## buckaneerbabe

Thanks Beelce!! I like that one even better. Just perfect for my needs. I know where I'm going for lunch now.


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## Lilly

wow great how to beelce 
I may even take a stab at this one day


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## beelce

Thanks Lilly...they can help you run your haunt


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## Eldritch_Horror

Very impressive How-to! I may have to employ this technique myself. Thanks for posting it!


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## Daphne

This is wonderful, thanks for posting it! The pictures made it so easy to follow. 

I have to make a couple of these. At this point, I have no idea what I will use them for but I absolutely must have 2!


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## TNBrad

I used mine in the yard on one side of the driveway facing the house and place the light and motion triggered props on the house and stairs; so as the TOTs would pass between, they got a start from the strobe lights I had on the motion triggered power cord and again from the props on the other side of the drive way (so they got it from both sides) LOL








Halloween haunt 07 :: 10 trigger part 2 picture by TNBrad - Photobucket
Not sure why my pictures never show up.


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## Toktorill

Great idea, might have to use one of those some day when I'm short of volunteers!


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## Abunai

Has anyone figured out a way to hack the motion sensor so that the on-time is less than 7 seconds (or whatever the "test" time is for a particular sensor?" 

I'd like a one second on-time.


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## lowdwnrob

Great how to. Dont really need one right now but I want to make it anyway.


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## hpropman

Abunai you can use the Parallax motion sensor and a microcontroller or a haunt controller (prop 1, etc) to get any length of time you require. My website has four how-to pages on motion detection. The link is below.


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## OpenTrackRacer

Nicely done!

I'm building something similar to what scourge999 posted for my motion activated tree shaker and air cannon. I bought two cheap security light for the motion sensors.


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## vista

*PDF instructions*

Hey Beelce, Do you have this in PDF form so we could D/L it to have on our computers local?
It's a great job either way and I'm going to see if I can save this under my favs so I can come back and find it...

Vista


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## beelce

Sorry vista....no PDF at this point...I'll have to look into to that....hope the how-to helps you....thanks for checking in...


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## vista

If you don't have pdf making software let me know.. I can probably pull it together into one doc...


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## hpropman

Vista go here and download this program. it will convert anything that you can print into a PDF document.

http://www.dopdf.com/

it creates a printer called doPDF then just print to the doPDF printer it will ask you where you want to save it and your done. Then just print this web page or anything else you want to make into a PDF file. Oh and its free.


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## Fiend4Halloween

Excellent "how-to" and greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for sharing.


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## HalloweenZombie

Hey Beelce. We're building your motion sensor hack at the MA Make and Take. Just dropped in to give you kudos.


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## beelce

Thanks for the kudos HZ...it's an honor for me...
hope you guys have lots of fun...please post pics


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## stick

Hey beelce I would like to make one of the wireless motion sensor do you have a break down on how you made that.


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## beelce

Sorry Stick, I did not make any type of "how to" on the wirless project....It was very straight forward to buiild and all the parts are from Lowe's...Good luck


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## ghubertu

Not trying to sound redundant (or even look redundant for that matter), just wanted to say thanks for such a simple contruct and easy-to-follow pics. I can stop bothering my electrician friends now.


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## altupu10

thanks Beelce for the detailed how to. I just put this together but for some reason, my motion sensor light isn't going on. The power strip light stays on constantly and is getting power but i thought that the purpose of the sensor was to not turn the power on until the sensor turned it on. I just bought another sensor thinking that i might have a faulty one on there now but i'm not sure. any thoughts?


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## beelce

Hey altupu10...
The power strip light always stays on because it powers the sensor, which is really just a switch to turn the power on and off to the receptacles

Also remember that it takes the sensor a few minutes to warm up before it can see you moving.............

After that you need to check your wiring again and the sensor (I did have a bad sensor once from Lowes).....let us know how you do...good luck


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## smoke624

I cant believe how simple that is > kicks self for not thinking of it <


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## smoke624

this works with extension cords too  I added did a couple surge plug hacks tonight and decided to try an extension cord instead on the last one and it works well. Make sure you heat shrink it


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## altupu10

Thanks Beelce. I finally got mine to work. I'm trying to run a FCG to it but for some reason, i'm not getting enough power to run thru the surge protector now. It powers on the blacklight just fine, but when i have the FCG motor plugged in, it doesn't give it enough power to run it. If i plug the FCG to the extension cord directly, it works fine, but something is happening in the surge protector that it doesn't give sufficient power.


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## beelce

I have no idea what would make the voltage drop down like that. I have never had a problem with any of mine, and I run ALL sorts of lights, fans, motors, sound equipment thru mine.
If I had to guess, I would say it is the motion sensor, as all the other components are just off or on, and controlled by the sensor as a switch.
Good luck with it altupu10


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## altupu10

I showed it an engineer friend of mine here at work and he told me i'm losing 1/2 the voltage. I need to double check my wiring again and redo it as i think i might have connection issues.


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## dominic81

Cool thread its amazing the creative thinking people come up with. Great Idea simple and effective!!!!


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## Bethene

great tutorial, I bought a motion sensor on clearance from Walmart, never used it, I will have to give this a try for this year


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## beelce

Cool Bethene......
Hope it goes smooth for you......


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## Digger

Seems like its easy enough!!!And plenty of plug ins!!


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## Skeered

Awesome hook up a screaming meanie alarm
to it


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## beelce

Wow....been a long time since the thread had any posting....
Thanks for the comments...
Hope to see more of you SKEERED.........


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## toyofrz42

I have to say that I am very impressed with this and am definitely going to use this. Great idea and possibilities are amazing. Thanks


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## fytclub

Brining it back from the great beyond.

Does anyone have a version of this with good pics?


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## corey872

Wow -yeah, I hope the OP was eventually able to upgrade the potato those original photos were shot on, lol.

Sorry I don't know of any better photos. The wiring should be pretty simple. The sensor is going to need power in and then should have a switched 'power out on activate' line. So power into your outlet strip would also be power in to the sensor and power output of the sensor would be output to all the outlets you wish to run.

One thing to note - i have a motion light which is 'half bright' normally, then kicks up to full bright when detecting motion. I noticed someone posted about getting 'half power' when scanning this thread...possibly this is why. You would generally want to stay away from a sensor like this, unless that is the effect you want.

You might also consider some ready made options. A quick search shows several..

https://www.amazon.com/motion-sensor-power-strip/s?k=motion+sensor+power+strip

https://www.amazon.com/Motion-Activated-Light-Control-Plug/dp/B0128U0GOY

https://www.amazon.com/Tricklestar-7-Outlet-Advanced-PowerStrip/dp/B00MDXEGWK

https://www.amazon.com/Tricklestar-7-Outlet-Advanced-PowerStrip/dp/B00MDXEGWK

Obviously searching google, ebay or other common outlets might turn up more models.


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## fytclub

Thanks for the suggestions.

I made one of these before and it worked perfectly. It is for a shiatsu zombie with a plug in speaker. What I liked about this one was you could set the peripheral zone and the time it would stay on. I want a pretty pinpoint area and a fast turn off (5 seconds I believe). The others didn't seem to meet that.


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## corey872

On the detection side, you could always mask off part of the sensor, or place it in a way to limit the detection range. Most all these sensors work best by having something go 'across' the field of view vs directly toward/away from the sensor.

The timer side would be harder. I believe a lot of people resort to using the 'test' function to get such short intervals. A lot of sensors seem like they don't specifically have short intervals to keep things from switching on/off all the time.

If you need a lot of customization, you might look into an arduino set-up. There is a bit of a learning curve, but it would be highly customizable on the sensors, on times, off times, outputs, etc. A PIR sensor, arduino uno and relay break-out board could duplicate this basic set-up and offer more flexibility for timing.

https://learn.adafruit.com/pir-passive-infrared-proximity-motion-sensor/using-a-pir-w-arduino

https://www.bc-robotics.com/tutorials/4-channel-relay-breakout/


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## fytclub

I really should go the Arduino route as it would open up a lot more for future stuff.


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