Help with code for Halloween Display

Hi Everyone,

I’m very new to the world of Particle, and I am trying to create a killer Halloween display using a small army of Photons. I’m pretty savvy when it comes to the hardware side of things, but when it comes to the programming, I am lost. My inspiration comes from this article: https://makezine.com/projects/halloween-2016-control-props-photon/

I have followed it pretty closely, but I am mainly using the Transistor triggers rather than the LED. I made a few edits to the program for my Photons to compensate for that change, and I don’t seem to have any problems there.

My issue is with the .html file I am trying to use to interface with the Photons. I again made some edits to the file he provided, to reflect my changes. I can get the .html file to load, but some of the buttons are missing from the page and there is not communication with my Photons. This is where my lack of programming knowledge sets in.

Here is what I have: https://github.com/RebelTechLV/halloween-pandemonium/blob/master/version_1

My needs are:

  1. A button to trigger each prop individually.
  2. A button to trigger a preset sequence of events across all the photons.

My end goal/dream is to have a motion sensor attached to one of the Photons trigger the sequence of events.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I’d love to give the trick-or-treaters something to remember!

Glad to see you are starting early on your Halloween preparations!

but I am mainly using the Transistor triggers rather than the LED

What sort of load are you driving with your transistors? I assume low voltage DC?

I again made some edits to the file he provided, to reflect my changes. I can get the .html file to load, but some of the buttons are missing from the page and there is not communication with my Photons

Might be worth just copying the original and trying to get it to work without changing other than the device IDs and access token.

For you application on the photons you can use the console to test the methods. These will be some declared Function - Particle.function();

Might be worthwhile sharing that code and getting some feedback from the community? Clearly, remove the access token and full device IDs first.

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What sort of load are you driving with your transistors? I assume low voltage DC?

Correct, Low Voltage DC. I am attaching to the "Test Me" or demo slot on the props. Just toggling a circuit to trigger the prop.

Might be worth just copying the original and trying to get it to work without changing other than the device IDs and access token.

I have tried this, but that still did not work. Some of the original code is outdated (ie spark.io vs particle.io). I feel like there is something else that I'm just not seeing that is incorrect.

For you application on the photons you can use the console to test the methods. These will be some declared Function - Particle.function();

Probably should have added some more detail on the Photons. They work fine with the program I loaded them with. I can successfully trigger all outputs via the console and Tinker mode in the phone app. I can even get one output at a time to trigger with a "do it" command from the tutorial .html file.

Might be worthwhile sharing that code and getting some feedback from the community? Clearly, remove the access token and full device IDs first.

The .html code can be found at the GitHub link above.

Thanks for your feedback!

Take a look on rotilio.cc project this can be adopt as your front-end. Couple years ago I used this web app to get some environmental data from my photon and display them on analog gauges. The app is a little old and the problem is, when you enabled two factor authentication is not gonna work. I’m a little busy now but when I found a some free time I’ll check how we can modify the app for MFA.
Reason why I recommended Rotilio cc is that they have some RS485 Rotilio Relays Array which I used personally. This relay array can save you from pulling a bunch of wires and is addressable ! I can’t find even over their website if it’s still available on the market but I can contact with them and ask. Anyway if is not available you can found on the market some I2C relays array with PCF8574 on board which can be also addressable.

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