Halloween Pneumatics Prop DIY - Converting a Manual Prop to an Automated System (Part 3 of 4)

Welcome to our automated Halloween prop video. This is the third of four videos, so if you missed the first two, please, go back and watch them before continuing. In this video I plan to show you how to automate the manual pneumatic system we previously created. For ease of demonstration, I will leave our original setup for reference and create a complete new second system. As mentioned in the first prop video, we used a spring return air cylinder part number: A12060SP. In this system I will use the same cylinder. What we want to achieve is to turn this into a simple automated system. We will do this by removing the manual valve and replacing it with an electrically operated solenoid valve part number: AVS-3211-120A and add a photo sensor part number: MV6-A0-0A to trigger or turn on the valve. The plumbing will stay the same and the connections will go in the same ports on this solenoid valve as they did in the manual valve. The biggest difference is that we need to create an electrical circuit here to energize the photo sensor and in turn control the valve. I chose to use an AC powered sensor and AC powered valve. This may be a little more intimidating using 110 volts ac but if you take your time and follow safety guidelines the system will work great. We could have used a 24volt dc system, but this would require an AC to DC power supply like this one here and more wiring. I wanted to keep this example as simple as possible and inexpensive. Let me mention this: If you don’t have the skills or knowledge to work with electricity, we suggest hiring or finding someone that does, so you and your system remain safe. So first, I bring in our supply voltage. All of the neutrals will be connected together. Next, all of our ground wires are connected together. Then last, we use our hot wire which is the black wire to control the solenoids. With the sensor we are using, we have 3 wires – brown is connected to our hot supply voltage, blue is connected to our neutral wires and black switches the hot or supply voltage going to our solenoid. Now that we are all wired up, I will demonstrate. So… as you see, when someone would walk in front of the photo sensor, it sends voltage to the solenoid and activates it to move the air cylinder. When no one is in front of the sensor, the cylinder retracts. All of the products we have used in this system are products that AutomationDirect sells with the exception of the air compressor, so keep us in mind for all of your automation needs. Thanks for watching and we hope you follow me through the last video to see how this prop is turned into a fully automated system.