Thread: kicking hangman

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I know this has been covered several times, but I am going to build a hanging body who's legs kick and I want to use a wiper motor not pneumatics.

Only thing with a wiper motor is getting a more random movement, so ...... how do I do this?

I have a PicoBoo box. If I run this prop through the picoboo, would I be able to turn the wiper motor on and off and give this prop the random effect I want ? Would this work?????

I thought about puttinga kind of cam wheel, cut in a very irratic pattern, on the motor and have some kind of pulley or "something" that this cam could ride in. When the motor runs the cam would push on the pulley at differen levels and intervals to make the movement very irratic.
I dont want the prop to stop when his legs are in the up position so how would I do this?

Help... the more I think about it the more complicated I'm making it!

Maybe I'm going to have to make this pneumatic?

There are many great reference guides on the web.

I built mine using a WWM,an old PC power supply and a motion sensor.

The motion sensor ensures that he starts thrashing only when someone is near.

Check out my build.
http://legacyofhorror.org/?page_id=146

I don't know if a pneumatic setup would provide better movement, except perhaps additional 'twitchiness'

For mine, the WWM is mounted in the abdominal area. The crank arm lifts the legs and drops them. Once it starts going the whole body starts thrashing about, it's a ToT favorite.

Good Luck

Not to sound dumb, but what is a WWM ? I use a 12 volt pc power supply to power 12 volt fans to cool 74.2 V battery packs while charging them ( made the cooling system myself ). Now the 12 volt power supply has aligator plugs to hook up any thing that needs 12 volts, which is handy to have around.

Originally Posted by Langolier

Not to sound dumb, but what is a WWM ?

Not dumb, I'm just lazy WWM = Windshield Wiper Motor

As for the PC power supply, Scary Terry has all the details;
http://www.scary-terry.com/wipmtr/wipmtr2.htm

Here's the thread detailing how I'd do it - A New $35 Picaxe Controlled Prop Motor
It was originally designed to be used with a vent motor but works with a wiper motor as well.

I found a design on the web years ago that I built mine from, but the links seem to be dead now. The body of the hang man is a 5 gal drywall mud bucket. The wiper motor is mounted toward the top of the bucket in the center. The arm of the wiper motor then has a 5 lb weight on the end of it. So the rope/neck is attached to the handle of the bucket. As the wiper motor spins around, the weight offsets the center of gravity of the bucket and it tips/rocks. The legs are just 2x2 board with hinges attached to the bottom of the bucket and at the knees. The movement is great and totally random!