Thread: Glowing "hot" coals ...

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All good stuff, and cudos to everyone who takes the time to do a tutorial. I thought I'd share some tricks I've learned with faux hot coals. Unless your final product has to fit into a some sort of frame as LTScare did, there is really no need for a base. I laid a string of 150 orange lights onto 7mil clear plastic sheeting, forming a circle under my cauldron. I placed a dozen red and white whiffle balls around it and plugged about half the bulbs into them and spread the remaining bulbs evenly around the cauldron. I removed the cauldron and covered all balls, lights and cord with Great Stuff foam. When the top of the foam dried I carefully removed the clear plastic and let the bottom dry (upside down.) I then plugged in the lights and painted any area that didn't light up black. This method gives me the opportunity to replace burnt bulbs; randomizes the sizes and shapes of the coals; and gives a realistic glow along the edge as some of the bulbs create a downward glow onto my ground cover.Halloween Forum - walkingcorpse's Album: Old stuff - Picture

Thanks walking - another good application of the same basic "tech."

I should mention more about the prop that Goldie made that inspired this prop / tutorial.

Her prop was a piece of cardboard, with the top covered in tin foil. She poked holes through it and fed orange lights from the bottom. She then covered with wiffle balls and foam. It was shaped so that she could (dressed as a witch) lay in a wheelbarrow with her legs out front and torso up, and place the "coals" so that it appeared she was covered with coals in the wheelbarrow.

There are lots of good applications for this and I hope you guys will share them here with us all.

Thanks for the tutorial; looks like a great effect ! With the exception of a couple particularly excellent projection illusions, I tend to be unimpressed with simulated flames, so I'd much prefer to try this technique where applicable. It makes me want to try to recreate the burning fort effect on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland; I bet you could use the basic technique for larger settings.

this is awsome- add 1 more to the build!! thank you

I can't wait to get started on this for next year. Really great tutorial.

Wow, glad that all of you like this.

TIP: I suggest you start looking for the orange, controlled light strings right now. Last year it took me a couple of months to get a good price on them.

FWIW

Wow! The whole thing looks great! it reminds me of the Mummy ride at Universal, when the walls of the temple begin to glow like they are being heated up red hot, and it follows the car along the cattacomb. I always thought that was a really cool effect, and now I am tempeted to try it using this and some chasing LEDs programed to move slower. Thanks for the ideas!

So, I'm putting together my shopping list and I can't seem to find a string of orange lights with a built-in controller. Can you tell us what company, etc. yours is? I looked at christmas light source, but they only had them without controllers and i couldn't find cheap controllers separate for non-LED strands.

This was definately the most difficult component to acquire. I watched new listings for searches of "orange light string" and "orange light control" and "holiday lighting chasing" on ebay for quite a while (months?) before I found one.

I just checked and there are none listed right now, but if you have lots of time on your hands, this item Item number: 280450239869 is the same thing with red, blue, & green christmas bulbs. You could replace all 150 of these with orange lights if you are truely determined.

This also looks promising if you are electronically savvy- Item number: 140373296881 . It appears it could duplicate the control of several strings.

Another, more expensive alterative is a place called NoveltyLights.com. They will make up all orange (I'd add in some purple if possible) rope lights and they offer some controllers that would work. BUT this looks costly to me.

Be sure to exhaust the ebay option first. Save your search and search often. Sellers can see people looking for specialty items like this and if there are any left out there, they will eventually get listed. They might seem a bit pricey compared to a regular string of lights, but if you've explored the alternatives above as I had, you'l be certain to snap up the first on listed.

Less costly alternative that would still be a good affect -
Several different shorter strings of orange lights flashing at diffent intervals mixed with some none flashing orange and purple lights.

I've glued my light controller to the board with hot glue, but I'll check tonight to see if I can spot the manufacturer name and I WILL pass it along if I can find it.

Once again, you don't want all of your lights in sync. Some of my strings stay on all the time, some use a standard flashing bulb control, and others, of course are this hard to find controller string.

Just found this on ebay - Item number: 350311914320

These are clear blulbs using what is described to be my controller. Clear might work well if you use some orange celophane and or orange plastic pieces to line the wiffle balls. JoAnn's should have something that would work for that.