Thread: Battery Operated props.

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When I decorate I do so a long ways from an electrical outlet since we do our Halloween at the church in the parking lot for the safety of the kiddos. We call it Trunk or Treat and it is a great time. I want to make some pneumatic props but the solenoids, triggers and timers need to run of 12-24VDC. I am interested in making a few items, but I want to start small. The first item I make is air cannon of sorts. I want it to shoot air up from the ground and make streamers wave in the air. The problem like stated before is I will not have an endless air supply so I want it to shoot in short 1-2 second bursts and then shut off so I can use a large air tank in the car and run a hose to the device.
Sorry this is so long but I thought it would be better to explain what I am doing. So to the question is what kind of trigger and timer do you all recommend? I know that I can make the device work for one continuous shot but can not get the valve to shot after the trigger is triggered. Any help would be great since I have done this all on paper and am getting ready to do R&D. I also have a chance to real world test in March against the unsuspecting so I unfortunately do not have a ton of time.
Thank you in advance for all your help
SilentStalker

I do something similar for a church group. I use CO2 tanks and a deep cycle marine battery to run everything, including the sound system and an inverter to plug my laptop into for running VSA. (Made the mistake of running everything off my car battery the first year and had to jump start it to get home...)

For triggering, I use a 12 channel wireless remote I got off of ebay from this place: eBay Seller: e-madeinchn: Home Garden, Electronics items on eBay.com
It has 12 buttons on the remote that correspond to 12 relays on the receiver board. It has a range of at least 200 feet in my pocket and without the antenna up.

I keep the remote in my pocket so I can trigger different things from across the parking lot when nobody is expecting it. Each prop goes for as long as I hold down that button. With kids wandering all over the place, motion sensors didn't work all that well.

Thank you for your help.
It looks like I am going to have to get up to speed on some the boards so I can make this work.

Earlier this year I had a client that needed something exactly like what you describe. I made for him the board attached in the photo. The larger IC is a basic relay which can be used to turn on/off your pneumatic valve or what have you. It can be custom programed to pretty much turn on/off for any given time frame you wish. Almost anything is possible. What he used it for is it was triggered by an external circuit (5-25v pulse) and it closed the relay for 5 seconds, then opened it for 1, then closed it again for 2 seconds, then went back to listen for the next trigger again. But again, I can custom tailor it to your needs.

I'm not sure if your just looking for 1 or many but I have 1 leftover PCB sitting around somewhere here that I can part with for $20 or less pending on if I have spare parts for it, lol.

If your looking for a lot we can talk and I can get you some solid numbers. As with most electronic things the price goes way down per unit when the QTY goes up.

Drop me a PM if your interested or with any questions!