MagiQuest Wand Hack

[Michael P. Flaga]

I have my son’s MagiQuest wand and wanted to create my own animated Kiosk’s. The wands are IR transmitters, that I believe send a Serial Number to IR receivers in animated Kiosk’s. Where the animated Kiosk’s can be puppets or video screens of pixies.

 

So I purchased one of each wavelength (850 to 980nm) of Photo Diodes along with one of each 36Khz to 57KHz IR Remote Receiver, which are typically 950nm.

 

Well a quick try of the rumor that it was 36KHz, appears to be correct. Where 38KHz (most TV remotes) does not work and 36.7 does.

 

The Oscilloscope show an almost repeatable wave form. Minus some noise at the start. Probably a design issue with the way the wand activates, from the ball bearing. Being a motion sensor. So now I can put the IR decoders output something.

 

But now I want to capture it in some form of data logger and difference them between my other sons wand. And then I should be able to parse out the serial number. And then connected an authenticated wand to my Garage Door.

 

Imagine saying “Open Sesame” and flick the wand, in front of a 4 and 9 year old. Or a voice chip in an stuffed animal.

 

Michael P. Flaga, mic...@flaga.net

 

[Terence Conklin]

On 6/8/2012 7:34 PM, Michael P. Flaga wrote:

So I purchased one of each wavelength (850 to 980nm) of Photo Diodes along with one of each 36Khz to 57KHz IR Remote Receiver, which are typically 950nm.

How many discrete wavelengths are there?

Well a quick try of the rumor that it was 36KHz, appears to be correct. Where 38KHz (most TV remotes) does not work and 36.7 does.

Apologies in advance, I'm not up on this, but there was a recurrent issue in the Palm days because the Palm's IR wasn't entirely remote compatible.  A number of people fussed with it with varying success, there was a 'consumer IR' add-on and it was kinda hit or miss.  Curious - is 36Khz a digital 'standard' and consumer IR is 38Khz?

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Terence Conklin	Conklin Systems is a consulting product developer,
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[Carl Raymond]

You have the best equipped lab I know of, so I'm surprised you don't have a scope with a multichannel logic probe already! There are Arduino programs for decoding TV remotes, and something like that should be easy to modify (if that's even needed) to decode this.  The only wrinkle, as you mentioned before, is the possibility that it uses a one-time pad, like the car remote unlock fobs do.  But I would guess not, because seems like it would add a lot to the cost of the thing, and it's just a toy.

I'm no expert in this area, but I bet the format of the data it sends out is a standard preamble, followed by a unique identifier, followed by a checksum.  That could still add up to a lot of bits, and analyzing that with an Arduino receiver could be inconvenient.

[Michael P. Flaga]

I have a multi-channel oscilloscope, but I need deep memory. My lab is from 1990, nothing new since. The best scope I have is a behemoth HP analyzer, that I would program to scope the bus of 486’s and 68000 cores. But it was only 500 bytes deep.

 

I probably will grow an arduino data logger into an application for this.

 

I when done with that I will need add an IR led to my Doctor #11 Sonic Screw driver, with a Serial ID of my own.

 

Michael P. Flaga, mic...@flaga.net

[Michael P. Flaga]

Looks like about 15 different discrete wave lengths and 6 different modulations. Whereas it appears most of the demodulators are centered around 950-970nm.

 

425-2511-ND	RECEIVER IR REM CTRL 3V 36KHZ	1.08
425-1989-ND	RECEIVER REMOT CTRL SIDE 36.7KHZ	1.15
425-2040-ND	RECEIVER REMOT CTRL SIDE 36.7KHZ	0.97
RPM7138-H9R-ND	RECEIVER REMOTE CTRL 37.9KHZ TOP	1.4
751-1390-5-ND	IC IR RCVR MOD 38KHZ DOME AXIAL	0.91
425-2528-ND	RECEIVER IR REM CTRL 3V 38KHZ	0.96
425-2513-ND	RECEIVER IR REM CTRL 3V 40KHZ	1.08
425-2525-ND	RECEIVER IR REM CTRL 5V 56.8KHZ	1.13
160-1030-ND	PHOTOTRAN NPN 3MM IR DARK	0.27
751-1061-ND	PHOTOTRANSISTOR NPN SIDE VIEW	0.92
1080-1160-ND	PHOTOTRANSISTOR 5MM BLACK AXIAL	0.38
1080-1158-ND	PHOTOTRANSISTOR 5MM BLACK AXIAL	0.38
365-1066-ND	PHOTOTRANSISTOR IR 3MM 935NM NPN	0.5
751-1004-ND	PHOTOTRANS NPN 5MM IR 70V	0.96
751-1041-ND	PHOTOTRANSISTOR 3.0MM WIDE VIEW	0.67
751-1042-ND	PHOTOTRANSISTOR NPN SIDE VIEW	0.75
365-1077-ND	PHOTOTRANSISTOR 5MM NPN 890NM	0.55
475-1444-ND	PHOTOTRANSISTOR NPN 880NM 3MM	0.38
475-1080-ND	PHOTOTRANSISTOR NPN 870NM W/FLTR	0.34
475-1441-ND	PHOTOTRANSISTOR NPN 860NM 3MM	0.41
475-1081-ND	PHOTOTRANSISTOR NPN 850NM CLEAR	0.34
PNA1801LS-ND	NPN PHOTOTRANS 800NM T1	0.56
475-1443-ND	PHOTOTRANSISTOR NPN 780NM 3MM	0.38

 

 

Michael P. Flaga, mic...@flaga.net

 

From: high-impeda...@googlegroups.com [mailto:high-impeda...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Terence Conklin
Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2012 11:47 PM
To: high-impeda...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [HIAG] MagiQuest Wand Hack

 

On 6/8/2012 7:34 PM, Michael P. Flaga wrote:

[John Estill]

So, went to Traverse City for Great Wolf family time. Every time I come back I want to do something with the wands, but don't want to spend too much time. So google-ing around for solutions, I found this thread. And, I found this blog posting that is just a few days old. (link below) I thought I would cross-post to bring other people up to speed. Also, the ardiuno project seems to have the MQ wand added to the IR library.

http://openschemes.com/2013/02/27/mq-widget-pic12f508-controlled-magiquest-toy/

-John in Lansing

[Michael P. Flaga]

The openschemes.com server appears to have problems. I was only able to view
it once then 500 internal server errors since, so I can only view it by
google cache.

Which arduino project has it added to it?
I have done extensive work on it, and recently forked Ken Shirriff's and
added my MQ work to it.
I have NOT yet requested a merge as I am finishing up adding the mini 3.5
helicoptor's for Syma, Useries and Air-Hog.
And looks like Ken is not accepting pull requests, anyways. I may pull in
the pending.

Strange he said he found no real work on it. I agree there is very little,
but the HIAG info google's up real fast. And a post of mine on SparkFun's
forum. With the server down. And from the cached article I don't see him
posting any PIC code.

Either way, More the merrier.

Michael P. Flaga, mic...@flaga.net

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[John Estill]

He referenced your fork

[John Estill]

He referenced your fork

[Michael P. Flaga]

Having a lot of trouble getting that site. Yes, I see the mention of the
Google Group which then goes to HIAG.

When it stabilizes I have some questions. And suggestions to that forum.

I keep meaning to do an Instructables. But not much time.

Michael P. Flaga, mic...@flaga.net



-----Original Message-----
From: high-impeda...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:high-impeda...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Estill
Sent: Sunday, March 03, 2013 10:25 PM
To: high-impeda...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [HIAG] MagiQuest Wand Hack

He referenced your fork

[Randy C]

I was successful in using the wands at home.

http://www.element14.com/community/people/ranman9086/blog/2015/02/07/first-try-using-the-magiquest-wand-with-an-arduino

[Michael P. Flaga]

Congratulations. My family has been enjoying MagiQuest and the wands for years. My son had an amazing look of joy on his face one day when I told him that I had captured the magic and brought it home. Since non-hackers must leave the magic at Great Wolfe Lodge. Noting that you can often pickup additional wands on eBay. And of course the baby girl had to get a pink wand.

To help in this venture I had successfully decoded the wands format into a fork of mpflaga/Arduino-IRremote as to uniquely identify each wands serial number and magnitude of swish (along with adding 2.5ch Helicopters, another project) and implement them into Arduino UNO's and Digispark's (ATtiny85) to create a Dueling MagiQuest Wand Game for Detroit's Maker Fair.

Have Fun, hacking...

Michael P. Flaga, mic...@flaga.net

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