Dr. TerrorEyes
The Great Pumpkin

I am going to Hantcon because it's only about 1.5 hours away. I'll be there Friday, Sat. and Sunday a.m. I look forward to attending awesome classes, cruising the vendors -- meeting my suppliers -- and having fun, of course!

Answering your question concerning my laser vortex:

The wheel literally has 50 independent lasers on it. They are 5 mw lasers modules. I bought them in bulk quantity off e-bay. Believe it or not all 50 lasers run off 4 D cell batteries.

When first designing the wheel I was trying to figure our how to use mirrors or spinning lasers, but in the end I decided to go with separate modules to get distinct individual beams.

So... I'm about 90% done with the unit. My last hurdle is the drive mechanism to get the wheel to turn. To my surprise a 1/2 horse motor was not enough to spin it. In fact I burned up the motor running it for only 10 minutes. I ordered a 1-1/2 hp motor from Harbor Freight a couple days ago. When it gets here I should be able to finish in about a week.

This project turned out to be somewhat more complicated (and expensive) than originally intended. Imaging that! Tell you what, cutting an 8' diameter wheel with any sort of precision is difficult. BTW the wheel breaks down into 5 sections for easier storage.

Let me know if you have more questions.

I'd be happy to help any way I can. I run six props off a 30 gallon compressor, and it works just fine. I also have a small 8 gallon in the shop. I would think you could run two props on your 10 gallon, if you use industrial pneumatics. They are much more efficient than screen door closers, or PVC cylinders, which tend to leak a lot of air. Industrial cylinders are much safer, and more reliable too, as they are made to withstand 250 psi.
If you notice, all of my props are single valve, single cylinder set ups, except the Lowboy. That one has two cylinders, but they are metered the same, and provide a single movement (I'm thinking of re-working that one). There are lots of prop designs to choose from, but most are based on the four bar linkage. If you don't know what that is, Google it.
Once you learn that concept, a lot of the mechanisms will make more sense, and you can let your imagination run wild! Let me know if you have any more questions.

Thanks for looking, and for all the kind words. Yes, I build all of my own animatronics. I have a nice little metal fab shop in my garage (when there's not a haunted house in there), so I can build everything right here at home. I started out like a lot of others here, building animatronics using wood, PVC, and screen door closers for cylinders, but I wanted to make them more reliable, and safety conscious. None of the designs are original ( I printed off pictures of various machines and copied them), but I built them MUCH cheaper than you can buy them for. There is a pneumatics distributor here in town, so I get all the components really cheap.
My newest prop is the scissor extender. I'll have to take some better pics, and get those posted. Thanks again for looking. Happy Haunting!

Super cool spider friend to crawl around your computer screen...
http://abowman.com/google-modules/spider/

Thanks for the comments on my pics Doc. They wanted $16,500 for the Model T. Not out of line for a car that was done that well. You can't tell from the photo but all the pinstriping is spider web. It had webbing stitched in to the seats as well. Lots of little details. It really was hard to pass on.

My latest Prop build during Xmas: HERE.

I don't know if this will help but I found this website. http://www.members.cox.net/frightwerks/3dtv.html

I saw your tv pic so I made this. http://www.mediafire.com/?v2ydmzi4n2j

I have some new pics of my Halloween Party , I made a thread but you can also view the album. HOpe you had a merry Christmas and you need to start selling your props


http://www.halloweenforum.com/party-...lots-pics.html