Thread: My First Drop Panel

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Very nice........I assume there are drawer slides that I just cant see.

nice job drop panel are always a good scare...

whats this for?

Originally Posted by BadOleRoss

Very nice........I assume there are drawer slides that I just cant see.

Added a new picture to show the slides.

Originally Posted by hauntedhonda

whats this for?

TOTs walk in front of an ordinary-looking wall with a creepy picture on it... while they look at the picture it falls away with a bang! and an actor behind it reaches through for them... then suddenly the picture is back just as fast.

Really great! This is one of my projects for this year as well. Instead of a picture though I'm planning just a dark wall panel that drops.
I like the mechanism you used.

Can you tell me more about your latch / trigger mechanism?
Also, is there a stop, or do the drawer sliders take the abuse?

I wonder how you could get something like that to reset on its own? Like with a motor or something?

Originally Posted by trexmgd

Can you tell me more about your latch / trigger mechanism?
Also, is there a stop, or do the drawer sliders take the abuse?

The latch is a simple gate latch mounted face-down. I filed its mouth a little so it would open more easily. The "trigger" is the actor standing behind it, although it could certainly be easily rigged for pneumatics.

The sliders definitely do not take the abuse of the drop. Not only would they fail quickly, but there would be no "Slam!"

I reinforced a strike area short of the sliders' throw. Here is a better shot of that:

I wonder how you could get something like that to reset on its own? Like with a motor or something?

I think a two-way pneumatic cylinder would work great.

Charlie

Thanks for the update. For me, one of the contributing factors in this scare is the "BANG" of the panel dropping. Your set up should achieve that nicely.