Building a photo booth that can be left unattended.

[looklook]

Hi there,

I've built a few booths, and now I'm going to build a booth that stays in one place (in a Bar) for the first time.

I was hoping for help with a few points...

- Can a computer be set to automatically start the software if it's unplugged and then plugged back in (say a cleaner pulls the plug out).

- I won't be using Live View, but the camera will be on standby all the time, any suggestions on the best camera(It'll need to have a power supply and able to connect to a flash)?

- Thought I'd connect a simple coin mech to a circuit that activates an arcade button, has anyone done this?

Any help would be much appreciated, and if you thing there are any other issues I should consider.

Thanks

Darran

[jfreeman1412]

Yes all that is possible....Research it and you will find what you are looking for.

I would like to add on other feature that would be nice for this kind of setup and that would be a start and a a stop time. So say you drop the booth at, at an event that you do not need an attendant and you want it to start at 7 and stop at 10. I just bought a Digital Centre booth and it has the ability to do that. Thought it would be a good integration into the software. Although I am sure you can write a script to do so.

[Chris Breeze]

Hi there,

I've built a few booths, and now I'm going to build a booth that stays in one place (in a Bar) for the first time.

I was hoping for help with a few points...

- Can a computer be set to automatically start the software if it's unplugged and then plugged back in (say a cleaner pulls the plug out).

- I won't be using Live View, but the camera will be on standby all the time, any suggestions on the best camera(It'll need to have a power supply and able to connect to a flash)?

- Thought I'd connect a simple coin mech to a circuit that activates an arcade button, has anyone done this?

Any help would be much appreciated, and if you thing there are any other issues I should consider.

Thanks

Darran

You should be able to get the PC to boot automatically when the power is turned on using BIOS settings. There should be an advanced power management section in the BIOS with a setting similar to this: Restore from AC power loss [always off | always on | last state]

You could then add a shortcut to the photobooth software in the Windows Startup folder to run it automatically when the computer boots. Alternatively you could run a script if there are several things that need to be done at startup.

This page shows how to interface a simple coin acceptor:
http://www.breezesys.com/articles/photobooth_coin_acceptor.htm

[looklook]

Thanks for the help guys, I'll give it a try!

[rpvincent]

I agree that it would be cool to be able to program the start and stop time because we will frequently have a delivery driver setup a booth at a wedding that isn't scheduled to "open" until about 2 hours into the event.

It would be really cool if an hour:minute countdown could be displayed on the "booth currently closed" screen so guests would know exactly when it's time to jump in.

I have one of my booths setup in a photographer's studio and we have most of the booth's functionality shut down while their offices are closed by using a standard plug-in timer switch. You could just have that connected to the camera AC adapter and then use the "check camera connection" screen as your "booth closed" screen.

I also really like the token system that digital centre came up with where you could have a booth at a venue permanently and the venue would buy tokens from you for $50-$100 each which would activate the booth for the next hour (or some other selectable time period). 3 tokens would make it active for the next 3 hours...just like a parking meter. They sell the service to their client directly and you don't even need to show up!

[jayredliner]

Interesting thread. I'm being asked for this more and more.

Often people are looking for a semi-permanent, or weekly rental. Currently I only offer rentals with an attendant.

Anyone have this implemented?

[Chris Breeze]

I agree that it would be cool to be able to program the start and stop time because we will frequently have a delivery driver setup a booth at a wedding that isn't scheduled to "open" until about 2 hours into the event.

It would be really cool if an hour:minute countdown could be displayed on the "booth currently closed" screen so guests would know exactly when it's time to jump in.

I have one of my booths setup in a photographer's studio and we have most of the booth's functionality shut down while their offices are closed by using a standard plug-in timer switch. You could just have that connected to the camera AC adapter and then use the "check camera connection" screen as your "booth closed" screen.

I also really like the token system that digital centre came up with where you could have a booth at a venue permanently and the venue would buy tokens from you for $50-$100 each which would activate the booth for the next hour (or some other selectable time period). 3 tokens would make it active for the next 3 hours...just like a parking meter. They sell the service to their client directly and you don't even need to show up!

Here's a simple script which turns the booth on at a set time and then puts it into standby mode at the end of the time period:

#SingleInstance force
SetTitleMatchMode,2

; Booth start and end times in 24 hour HHMM format e.g. use 1930 for 7:30pm
StartTime = 2000
EndTime = 2230

; loop forever monitoring the status of the photobooth screen
Loop
{
IfWinExist, Breeze Systems Photobooth
{
now = %A_Hour%%A_Min%
WinGetTitle, Title, Breeze Systems Photobooth
if Title contains welcome.jpg
{
if (BoothOn())
{
ControlSend,,{F6},Breeze Systems Photobooth
Sleep 5000 ; allow time for booth to start
}
}
else if Title contains ready.jpg
{
if (!BoothOn())
{
ControlSend,,{F6},Breeze Systems Photobooth
Sleep 5000 ; allow time for booth to switch to standby
}
}
}
else
{
Ready = 0
}
Sleep 1000 ; sleep for 1 sec to avoid hogging the processor
}

BoothOn()
{
global StartTime, EndTime
now := A_Hour . A_Min
if (now >= StartTime and now {
return 1
}
return 0
}

You could promote the booth by running a movie which loops continuously when in standby mode by naming it welcome.mov. The script could be extended to show a countdown timer to show when the booth will be ready. You could also modify the script use a coin acceptor which only accepts special tokens to enable prepaid sessions. Another way to do it is to charge per print and use the photobooth_log.ahk script to keep a record of the number of prints.

[Professorlooney]

I am not a pc person, so i would like to know how and where to make this cript as i need to set up booth to start at a given time. Any help would be great.

[Chris Breeze]

All you need to do to try the script is to install AutoHotKey (a free download from www.autohotkey.org) and then double click on the script in Windows Explorer.

[looklook]

I'm understand how to Link up an arcade button as a switch and I can do the same with a coin mech,

But how can I use the coin mech to activate the arcade button, and then user can press the arcade button to activate the booth...?? Any ideas, I guess it requires some type of switch??

[Chris Breeze]

Have you seen this article on our website which describes how to interface a simple mechanical coin acceptor?
http://www.breezesys.com/articles/photobooth_coin_acceptor.htm

It works by using a script which puts the booth into standby mode after each set of shots and using the signal from the coin acceptor to switch to ready mode. The arcade style start button will only work when the booth is ready and will be ignored when it is in standby mode. This technique can be modified to work in different ways e.g. if you have a coin or bill acceptor that interfaces to the PC and updates a log file when money is accepted the script could be adapted to read the log file instead of waiting for a key press from a coin mech connected to a StealthSwitch.

BTW the latest versions of the software allow you to play a movie file on each screen and so you could have a movie file named welcome_loop.mov that is played continuously when the booth is in standby mode rather than just displaying a static welcome.jpg screen.

[looklook]

Have you seen this article on our website which describes how to interface a simple mechanical coin acceptor?
http://www.breezesys.com/articles/photobooth_coin_acceptor.htm

It works by using a script which puts the booth into standby mode after each set of shots and using the signal from the coin acceptor to switch to ready mode. The arcade style start button will only work when the booth is ready and will be ignored when it is in standby mode. This technique can be modified to work in different ways e.g. if you have a coin or bill acceptor that interfaces to the PC and updates a log file when money is accepted the script could be adapted to read the log file instead of waiting for a key press from a coin mech connected to a StealthSwitch.

BTW the latest versions of the software allow you to play a movie file on each screen and so you could have a movie file named welcome_loop.mov that is played continuously when the booth is in standby mode rather than just displaying a static welcome.jpg screen.

Thanks Chris, I had looked at this, but not probably, It sounds perfect, I'll give it a try!!

[looklook]

Hi Chris,

I don't want to use a stealth switch mainly because I can't get hold of one (can you buy them ini the UK?)

I'd prefer to use the Photoboothbtn program with my arcade buttons. I have the autohotkey working and once it is activated by pressing f12, you can use the serial to usb connection to start taking pics.

Is there a way to use my same serial port (but different pins) to take the software of standby mode.

Thanks for the help.

Darran

[Chris Breeze]

You can define actions for up to four buttons. It's not as flexible as the StealthSwitch method because the actions are sent as Windows messages direct to the photobooth software rather than as key presses. The StealthSwitch sends key presses which can be intercepted by an AutoHotKey script and modified if required.

I don't think you can buy them in the UK, but the StealthSwitch site shows international shipping for $16:
http://www.stealthswitch2.com/products/stealthswitch3/