apostolakisl Posted January 4, 2014 Posted January 4, 2014 Curious thing. One of my kids toys (Melissa and Doug Sound Toy http://www.melissaanddoug.com/vehicles- ... g-puzzle-1 ) which makes various vehicle noises when you put the correct vehicle into its spot is triggered by Insteon RF. This toy is not an RF toy, so it is rather funny that this happens. But it is totally reproducible. When I shut off a certain scene, it triggers the same vehicle sound every time.
oberkc Posted January 4, 2014 Posted January 4, 2014 This toy is not an RF toy, !!!??? That is very strange. And it only reacts to a specific scene?! Very strange, indeed.
apostolakisl Posted January 4, 2014 Author Posted January 4, 2014 This toy is not an RF toy, !!!??? That is very strange. And it only reacts to a specific scene?! Very strange, indeed. It responds to a scene that has a dual band lamplinc in it that is physically about 2 feet from where we store the toy. Probably if I put the toy next to a different lamplinc it would respond to scenes for that lamplinc. But I haven't tried. But it is odd. I suppose some of the wire traces on the pcb are the right length/orientation to be picking up the Insteon frequency and that is inducing enough current to trick the toy into thinking one of the puzzle pieces is being put into place.
ELA Posted January 4, 2014 Posted January 4, 2014 Might you have a guess as to what technology it is using to sense the presence of the toy? Could it be a capacitive sensor? Capacitive sensors can be very sensitive to RF interference.
apostolakisl Posted January 4, 2014 Author Posted January 4, 2014 Might you have a guess as to what technology it is using to sense the presence of the toy?Could it be a capacitive sensor? Capacitive sensors can be very sensitive to RF interference. I would have to destroy the toy to see what it is made of. Without destroying it, I can say that there is something that looks like a photocell where each puzzle piece goes. On the backside of each puzzle piece, there is about a one inch circle of black paint. Whenever the circle of black paint is over the "photocell", it triggers. There is something special about the black paint because other black things or covering with my finger does not trigger it. The black paint does not need to come in contact with the sensor, you can hold it as much as 1/8 inch away and it trips it. The black paint really looks like regular old spray paint to the naked eye. It is almost a stain as it has no thickness that a finger can detect rubbing over the edge. It always makes the same "airplane" noise when Insteon trips it. Since any of the pieces will trip any of the sensors if you get the black paint circle over the sensor, that pretty much rules out the sensor being some kind of rf tag trigger (unless I suppose they used the same rf tag for all of them). But I doubt it. Tripping the sensor is all about getting the black circle over the sensor, not any other mode of proximity. No matter which piece you use, if you start at the edge of the toy and start sliding it over, as soon as the edge of the black circle gets to the sensor it trips, no matter how you orient it. This leads me to believe the rf interference from Insteon is not at the sensor but rather part of the internals. .. which I can't get too. It is funny, every night at 11pm when the scene shuts off, we get the airplane noise.
ELA Posted January 5, 2014 Posted January 5, 2014 Sounds like you have done a bit of research. I agree it does not sound like a capacitive sensor. It is interesting and maybe when your child is done with it you can use it as an Insteon RF signal strength meter
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