Thread: Spider web 'kicker' question

Tweet

I have a pretty good aptitude for mechanical stuff, but I'm fairly new to electronics. I have a question for those of you who know prop controllers and triggers.

Here's what I want to do. Two years ago I built a giant spiderweb





and a giant spider.





His name was Boris. Although he was hastily thrown together at the last minute, he was a good spider. He stayed off of the furniture, kept his den clean, and hardly ever made a meal of the neighborhood dogs and cats. But, alas, the spring following his debut, he met an untimely end when my basement flooded. I'm currently working on a better, sturdier Boris junior.

But I digress.

I want to add a "cocooned" victim to the spiderweb, with a mechanism which would make it kick. I have the kicking mechanism all planned out ; I'm using an oscillating 12V wiper motor.

Since it will be close to the street this year, I had in mind a simple pir sensor that would trigger it to kick for 2 or 3 seconds when someone walks by. But I want to keep it simple and as inexpensive as possible. Is there a way to do this without investing hundreds of dollars into controllers, triggers, or timers ?

Another option I'm considering is some sort of timer to make it kick at irregular intervals. Again, I'd like to keep it simple and cheap.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind spending money on props, and I'll probably buy a Monster Guts nerve center for my MIAB. But I can't see spending a hundred bucks or more on a complex prop controller for such a simple functioning prop as my web kicker.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I think your best bet would be to plug your spider victim into a motion sensor floddlight socket with the floodlight switch set on the "TEST" setting.
It will trigger and run for several seconds then shut off.

That sounds like exactly what I want, but the motor runs on 12V DC. Would the floodlight sensor work running 12 volts through it instead of 115V AC? Or, maybe I could just hard wire a wall wart to the 12V motor, then plug it (the wall wart) into the floodlight socket?

Yes, I would just use a 12 volt DC wall wart.
That's what I use to power my DC motors.

Thanks for the info Dave. Of course I overlooked the most obvious option; I could cocoon one of the neighborhood kids and just hang them up there

LOL That's an idea. Then you could get the random movement you want!