Mighty Mule Driveway Alarm to Mysensors

[chorob]

Hello,

I am relatively new to the mysensors platform. I am working on a mysensors/homeassistant home automation system. Before I started this journey I installed a Mighty Mule driveway alarm and it works great. I would like to tie in a mysensors node to trigger alerts when the driveway alarm goes on.

Ideally I would like to have a hardwired signal wire from the mighty mule board into the arduino. Looking for best ideas to do this without making blue smoke happen withe the mighty mule board.

My best idea is to tap into the buzzer circuit. The LEDs are another option but the visitor light stays on until you hit reset which I never do. Only thing that is constant with a driveway trigger is three beeps (short, short, short, long) from the speaker.

Below are dropbox links to pics of the receiver and the insides. I assume I cannot attach pics since this is my first post.
Any ideas would be great.

Thanks!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kzn75smonhdjlg5/unnamed (1).jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9l6sbt5sbznegrg/unnamed (2).jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w7lh2re3wm99vcg/unnamed.jpg?dl=0

[sundberg84]

@chorob - as you said, a wire needs to be attached to a trigger on the board.
Somewhere you need to find a trace/component where the pad changes status HIGH/LOW when the trigger activates. By soldering a wire from there to a input in the arduino you can detect a change.

Make sure you have the same voltage so you dont fry the input on the arduino. You might want to use a octocoupler of some sort.

I would start by checking the leds... will one of the leds light up when you have a trigger? Might be a good way to start.

[chorob]

sundberg84. Thanks for the advice. The LEDs are not always a good source since they stay on after the first trigger. I was able to tap into the buzzer using an optocoupler/optoisolator.

I used a simple button sketch and can get LEDs to blink on the input and output side of the optocoupler (all hardware, no software involved), as well as an LED controlled by the arduino based on input from optocoupler.

The struggle I am having is getting a mysensors sketch to adopt to the gateway with this setup. I have other door switch and temp sensors in the system no problem with homeassistant.

I have used the basic door/binary/button sketch with no luck. My gateway's LEDs indicate that the signal is coming through but it won't adopt.

I have also tried the fire alarm sketches linked below but they will not compile even after fixing the library issue.

Awesome video to learn optocouplers
#53 Protect your Arduino - use an Opto Isolator! And RGB sound-to-light demo – 24:59
— Ralph S Bacon

Fire alarm/mysensors tutorials that did not compile
https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/934/mysensoring-a-kidde-smoke-detector-completed
How To - Smoke Alarm Monitoring with Arduino and MySensors – 11:01
— Pete B

Looking for ideas. I will try to post a video of my wiring and what is going on as soon as possible. I think I am just missing something simple.

Thanks!