Thread: Ghostly footprints the RETURN!

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Hello fellow haunters. I decided that I want ghostly footprints going down my basement stairs. But I don't want to make physical footprints like the ones I have seen here before. I am going to experiment with invisible UV paint and uv leds on a chaser circuit.

My question is......

Have any of you tried this approach before? And to what success or failure? Ghoulish little hands want to know.

Most LED chaser circuits, like this one:

LED CHASER KIT | AllElectronics.com

will not fade the LEDs when they're turned off. This kit can be modifed to do that, but it requires more parts, and some hacking to get the fade effect and to stabilize the the circuit so it starts on LED1 every time. On power-up, sometimes the IC will light multiple LEDs in some very odd sequences.
If the fade effect isn't a concern, no problem, but my experience with the 4017 IC says the hack for ensuring you always start on LED1 is a must-have.

If you could somehow use glow-in-the-dark paint instead of invisible UV, the print would naturally fade as the LED turns off. But it probably wouldn't fade fast enough to disappear quickly for realistic footsteps.
Also you'd have to find a chaser circuit you could slow down enough for footsteps too.

Here's a start... a chase light controller.

Rope Light

Still hunting for UV/blacklight ropes but not finding any...

The type of paint you're looking for would be "Shadow Wall Paint".

They quite often have shadow wall at science centres like the one we have here in Vancouver and in Seattle. A slowly timed strobe fires about every 30 seconds as kids stand and be silly in front of a wall painted with this stuff. When the strobe fires, it leaves the kids' silhouettes on the wall, then fades before firing again.

The paint is designed to have an extremely quick charge, glows bright and then fades fast to almost black. This would be perfect for the application DaveintheGrave suggested. The only drawback is it's extremely expensive. There's only one or two manufacturers and the only one I could find on short notice: Specialty Paints charges 72.98 for 1/2 pint!!!

Zoiks that's expensive! I was considering it for my fading ghost, but obviously did not go for this option. :OP

I've looked at the Shadow wall paint in the past too... that would be a great thing to have and use but ... wow... the expense! If anyone finds it cheaper, that would be awesome!

I'm asuming you'll have people going up and down the stairs, so wear on the step surface would be a concern.

As an alternate idea, you could create covers for your steps that contain the embedded physical footprints. Then wire it as before to light and fade. It would take some cutting and milling to fit the foots into the wood, sort of an inlay effect. Secure the covers to the steps, then remove them when complete.

Look at these... 10M 100 Blue LED String Fairy Light Party Wedding/Xmas - eBay (item 390153652023 end time Feb-11-10 13:17:12 PST)

I got a ton of them this year for my Xmas house lights and they work pretty well. Maybe this is a cheap alternative to the UV and painting? Of course building the step covers/inlay would be some work I think.