[Sundevilfanaz]

Ok here is my postmortem from all the Halloween decorations I spent 2 months working on.

The good-
Perfect Storm machine- worked brilliantly and my favorite part of this year's add. Sorry tough to show a pic of it working. I went light with the lights and used a 250W work light and two 100W bulbs up in the trees.

Skeleton painted with Tide- he came across pretty well to me. I had him in the front of the house so it was easy to be seen. He only needed some better positioning of black lights to really show off.


Laser Vortex -
Thanks to CDW i was able to get it up and running. Loved the effect until the remote died.


The bad-
My head popper tombstones- they sucked . I thought I had all the bugs worked out after several tests. Nope. They broke free of their Moro mounts before the sun went down and were no longer poppers. Back to the drawing board.

Liquid floor-I just couldn't get it to work. Never showed like I imagined it would.

Target fog machines (Gemmy wireless remotes)- both remotes broke within minutes of sun down. Kind of tough to make them work easily without them. The remotes are real cheap and the button moved out of position everytime I pressed it. If anyone has any tips please let me know.

The Ugly

Chauvet 700 fogger-he was cruising along until he ran out of juice. There was a period where nothing was in until I filled him back up. After that he was never the same. Will have to try again but his time may have passed.

 

[JeffHaas]

The buttons on the Target fog machines - sounds like typical cheap electronics. Unplug one, open it up, and try putting the button back in place. Then close it and see if you can get it to work. (If it plugs directly into the fog machine, DO NOT try this with the remote open - there may be line voltage running through the remote!) If it does work then all the connections are OK and the supports for the button broke off. You can then open the remote up again and hot glue the button in place.

You would not believe how many problems with cheap electronics can be solved with hot glue!

 

[Rigormortor]

For the foggers I use timers on mine. They work great. Just hook it up to the back and set the fog time duration
and intewrval inbetween fog bursts and your good to go. Here is a pic of one if you havent seen them before.
You can find them all the time online and so on....

 

[CDW]

Nice! That vortex mouth turned out great - looks like you made a big box for it, rather than the trash can? Anyway, looks like you had a fun night. I really like the bluing-agent glow, like on your Tide skeleton - have you tried using RIT whitener powder? It's sold in most laundry aisles, and gives the same glow without the sliminess of detergent (unless you're going for sliminess, that is). I like to mix in a little highlighter fluid to adjust the color.

As to the fog machine remotes, you mean this guy, right?


I have one, and they're not very useful. The remotes are infrared, so you need line-of-sight, and they are indeed pretty shoddily made. You can't easily interface a higher-end remote or timer, either, because they don't have a socket. I'd definitely recommend spending the extra on a fog machine with remote socket (or obsessively visiting thrift stores and buying them there ).

 

[Sundevilfanaz]

Thanks CDW.

As for the monster I made a PVC she'll and covered it with black vinyl table cloths. The face was just a piece of cardboard cut up.

Originally I did RIT the skeleton but nothing really stuck on him. I kind of had fun Tide-ing everything this Halloween and he got a bath in it.

Yeah my fog machines are the cheapie a. Have to check my Chauvet to see f it will live for another Halloween but those IR remotes did put a crimp in things.

 

[CDW]

Good point on the RIT - I guess sliminess comes in handy sometimes .