Thread: Electric chair Advice

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I did mine with a motor and crankshaft setup:

bradbaum/Electric Chair - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

It lifts the dummy up and down instead of rocking him back and forth.
The plasma displays under his hands I bought from Spencer's
Above his head is a Jacobs ladder that can be seen clearly at night and makes a nice buzzing sound as it is going.

If I was to do this prop again, I think I would go with the pneumatic cylinder suggested in other posts. Double acting of course, because you want to sling him forward and pull him backward violently.

Thanks for the input guys I think I am going to go Pneumatic ! So if I understand this right the bigger the cylinder i use the lower the psi I will need to move the prop?

By the way bradbaum cool Jacobs ladder! I am also in the process of building a Tesla coil that I was going to incorporate it in to the electric chair but I am quickly realizing how dangerous these things can be.

Exactly. The larger the bore of the cylinder, the more surface area the air has to act on (PSI, pounds per square inch) thus the more force with lower psi.

Play with psi and bore size on my calculator page, Evilusions.com , and you'll see.

The larger the bore on a cylinder the more weight it can move, If you have less weight then you can dial down the pressure or move to a smaller bore cylinder (less expensive).

The Jacobs ladder was behind a piece of plexi-glass and the back of it was concrete board, I was worried that the heat the arc generates would melt the plexi-glass, but I have not had that problem. I decided the arc was best kept away from any little hands, I also rope off the chair so people shouldn't get in by it. Jacobs ladders are very easy to build, I got a neon sign that a friend was going to throw away because the tube was broken, I just hooked the two power supply leads to some bent coat hangers pieces and wha-la! I did try to use copper wire first, but it is too soft and can't handle the heat the arc generates - use steel coat hanger wire.

I have everything to make a tesla coil but the capacitor, I have had it in a box for 15 years and never got around to building it.

Wow that is a great caculator page thanks !

Nice chair can't wait to build one.

Hey gadget-evilusions, I have a 4" stroke double acting air cylinder, I was wondering what switch/pneumatic solenoid you use with your cylinders for the electric chair, and does the cylinder react fast enough to really get that "air hammer" reaction from the electric chair victim? Your replies have been very educational for me, thanks!

The most effective part about any Electric Chair scene is...Presentation.

Here's what we did:
We had a live victim in our chair. An actor who was nice enough to shave his head. We built the classic electric chair, and the walls had lights, gauges and one REALLY obvious Electrical Switch (actually, an industrial switch).

The visitors were lead into the room, ten at a time, to witness the execution (all haunted house tours were in groups of ten..sometimes we'd sneak in a 10 year old 'victim' into the group that would get snatched by the werewolf(me)..but that's another story).

The condemned's history of crimes were listed, and the switch was thrown, which caused the following:

The overhead, eerie lights went out, and were replaced by strobes.
A soundtrack of electric arching was turned on.
Fog was released from the base of the chair.
Angle grinders on metal behind the chair turned on and shot rivers of sparks.
And the Pièce de résistance, the industiral vibrator under the raised floor the spectators turned on.

Chaos insued.

For safety's sake (always safety first), the big wall switch was a fake. It was not connected to anything. CONTROL was kept solely by the actor. Everything was controlled by the actor, by a momentary electric switch under the right arm of the electric chair.