Thread: Life-like Disney-based flickering candles

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Hi Folks.

These look Disney-based realistic, moving flicker candles look awesome! I'll wait until post-Xmas sale to buy, I think. Here's video:

http://www.frontgate.com/text/conten...o_Candles.html

Enjoy!

Those are really cool! Perfect halloween effect. Thx for posting that.

Those look good!!!

Those look great...but at $50-70 each...a bit too pricey for me.

So, who's gonna reverse-engineer these for us?

I agree, way too pricey. They do look great though.

I understand that these candles are non-flickering lights reflecting off of a randomly moving metal or paper shape. They probably have a preferred viewing angle, like pretty much straight-on so you don't see the 2-D reflector. The reflector seems to be mounted on a counterweighted gimbal or similar device, and the movement controlled by small electromagnets.
I have an old 12VDC battery lamp flickerer (BLF) that used to be sold by HauntMaster Prods. It uses three 555 oscillators with the adjustable outputs multiplexed to give a darn near random flicker effect. I'd bet that a similar circuit could be built using a PIC or or other microcontroller to deliver low-current pulses to a set of magnets. The magnets would tug on the counterweight(s) to make the reflector move. The BLF was retired years ago, but I may pull it out to see if I can get this effect to work. Like I said, though, I think the effect is not 360° viewable. Looks good up on the mantle but maybe not in the graveyard, and it won't throw much light around a scene.

Those look amazing thanks for posting this

Originally Posted by Frankenfrog

Those look great...but at $50-70 each...a bit too pricey for me.

Whoa,

I think the flameless luminaries made by Febreze have a nice, spooky flickering effect. They don't actually move like those in the video but neither do the candles at Disney. I've been wanting to find someone who knows more about electronics than I do who can reverse engineer these. I took mine apart and there's just a little circuit board in there with two LED's. Each LED flickers independently of the other and the light is diffused by the translucent cover, providing the overall effect. Just one of the LED's on its own provides a pretty good flicker so this could possibly be used to provide two channels of flicker. There's got to be a way to use the board to control more than just the two LED's. This past Halloween I just put the whole unit in my jack and it looked great. I got mine to work without having the scent shade on it.