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Enhancements for 2012 A Haunted House The big project planned for Halloween is a walkthrough Haunted House to replace the Gemmy Inflatable one that is showing its age. As with all of my designs, they have be easily disassemebled for storage and reassembled for the next season. After contemplating various designs and looking at picture of commercial and home haunted houses, I developed a concept based a 3x3 grid pattern. I chose 3 feet as 1 1/4" or 1 1/2" SCH 40 PVC is extremely rigid and strong with the short length. My next task was to decide what I wanted in the house. Ultimately, I developed the following list: a mad scientist lab with a Frankenstein monster, boiling colored beakers, Jacobs arc ladder, etc a Pepper's ghost illusion visible through front window a vampire's lair with vampire rising from the coffin witch's lair with my animated witch plus several small room sets with my other animated props. With my concept set, I began sketching the house based on "room" requirements. I ended up with a very reasonable 18 ft wide x 12 ft deep x 8 ft high structure. I used my Platinum software to do a CAD layout of the structure and render it in 3D. One thing I decided to do was create facade from 2" foam to make the house look like a castle and taller than it really is. The effect should be great. I plan to animate some things in the arches as well (brings back memories of the haumted houses at the fair). The roof will about a 30 degree slant from front to back to keep the rain from pooling on top. At this point I expect to use pre-formed plastic roof panel that are common at Lowes or Home Depot. I would like to find a resonably priced fabric for the interior walls that has some elasticity to it. The plans and conceptual rendering can be seen in the following links:
The windows to the rooms will be covered/protected from entry by either a large black ballistic mesh that will be invisible in the dark or some type of rabbit wire material in plastic if I can find it. Since the entire structure is PVC this will allow easy mounting of the Passive IR detectors that will trigger the props and scenes. I have experimented and developed a solution for replacing the CDS light/motion detectors in the commercial props with a PIR and timed relay. It works fabulously. The PIR detectors work in the dark where the light detectors out of the box do not. I plan to convert all my triggers to PIR and eliminate mats etc. This will eliminate issues with people missing the mats or using lasers with props that are hard to keep aligned. The house will be a beautiful edition to the haunt as it will protect the props and add greatly to the experience. I hope I an get it done this year but with the evolution of the Christmas display to LEDs resources could be a constraint as well as time. Using PIR Relays Timers with Commercial Props After doing a lot of research, there were a few nuggets of information regarding the use of PIRs with commercial props. Homemade props were easy as the PIR relay typically just controls the application of A/C or D/C power to the prop for a set period of time after the trigger. Commerical props with a Try Me button can be tricky even though they work with a relay, they usually turn the prop off again is triggered early before the routine is finished. So the best method was to figure out how to replace the standard light detector with a PIR and relay. As a side note, I always disconnect (clip the wires) the sound/piezo detector as they can be triggered by the sound from other props. Being a EE, I needed to make some measured to prove my theory. Since the CDS(light detector) is just a light controlled resistor, I took a test prop and disconnected the wires to the CDS. Using an Ohm meter, I measured the resistance in a full light and fill dark condition. The props trigger when the light sensor goes from light to dark. If it is dark outside, this is whey they don't work unless you provide a light source. I used small red lasers last year and they worked but were hard to keep aligned. So after measuring I discovered on one prop full dark is infinite resistance or an open circuit. With full light on the CDS sensor the resistance was 2K ohms...for a second prop it was 7K ohms measured out of the prop circuit. So, we took the prop sensor leads and place a 2K ohm resistor across them simualting the CDS in full light. Upon removing one side of the resistor opening the circuit the prop triggered as expected..hooray! So, I plan to measure the CDS for each prop to make sure I match the current CDS resistance as close as possible. The PIR detector will trigger the relay from body heat (think of your outdoor motion lights) and open the circuit with the resistor triggering the prop. This concept should work perfectly with any commercail prop (Spirit, Kmart, Walmart etc) that has a motion detector. Enhancements for 2011 A Sunken Pirate Ship The big project this year was a sunken pirate ship. I was inspired when I saw this picture on Google. The gentleman that created it lives in Southern Cal and is a Disney animator in real life. We had to scale it down a bit to fit our yard, but the we were pleased with the results.
Enhancements for 2010 We decided to eliminate the Christmas present grid in the show for this coming season. We will be expanding the 48 mini trees to all tri-color capable which adds 96 channels alone. We will also add 16 channels to the mega tree to have independent control of each side. 32 channles with 8 each of red, white, blue, and green. This expansion increases the effects possible astronomically. This will push us to 320 channels for Christmas. WIth Spring we will have to create 128 new 30 foot cables, add two new boxes to house the 8 new controllers, and add two new colors to each of the 48 mini trees. Our Halloween display is getting a major makeover as well. Replacing some tired Gemmy inflatables. We are constructing a Flying Crank ghost and mausoleum to house it, a carriage hearse to
hold a quartet of animatronic skulls, new tombstones made from carved EPS foam and Drylok coating, an animated grave grabber, animated full size witch stirring a cauldron,
(the witch's head will also be animatronic, and a few other improvements. Will be a busy spring and summer. I plan to have two LOR MP3 players, one for the primary
show and one for the quartet in the hearse using LOR Servo Dog controllers. Detail below!
Original 2008 Construction The Mega Tree When deciding on the design for the mega tree, I read every article and forum entry available over a period of a year before putting the design to paper. Consideration was given to many factors including number of lights and especially size in proportion to the house and location in the yard.
We ultimately decided on a 14 foot tree from ground level (minus the star) as the right size for our yard. The base is contructed of 3/4 inch PVC. The primary rings are 10 foot lengths of electrical conduit which is more flexible than Schedule 40. Three sections connected end to end result in a diameter of 10 foot and a circumference of about 32 foot. The two base rings are separated by 12 inch pieces of PVC and snap tees. The center of the base is a "circle" of 3/4 inch 45 degree and 90 degree tee connectors using small pieces of pipe. The pieces are small enough to be covered completely by the end to end connectors. This inner circle allows the "trunk" of the mega tree to pass through into the in-ground support. 
Once I picked the proper permament location of the tree, I dug a vertical hole 6 inch in diameter and 2 feet deep. I cut a 4 inch piece of PVC just a bit shorter than the hole to accomodate a cap on the bottom and a threaded plug cap on the top to be able to seal it during the rest of the year. After cutting the pipe and installing the caps, I drilled drain holes in the bottom cap. I put a small amount of gravel in the bottom of the hole and made sure the top of the screw in plug cap was level with the ground. We braced the pipe and placed dry Quickrete in the gap between the pipe and hole sides. After checking level, we wet the Quickcrete with the hose and left it over night to set. The next day we could use a wrench to remove the plug providing access for the mega tree trunk to be inserted. The plug remains screwed in most of the year to cover the hole. The trunk of the tree was constructed using a 10 foot length and 6 foot length of 3 inch diameter Schedule 40 PVC. The pipe is very strong and rigid. I joined the pieces with a coupler and used 1 inch drywall screws on both side of the coupler joint spaced around the pipe to secure and strengthen the coupler after gluing. I glued a cap on the bottom of the 10 inch piece and drilled a few drain holes for moisture control. On the top, I screwed 16 brass hooks side by side all the way around the cap. They fit perfectly. On the very top I drilled a 3/4 inch hole to accept the threaded end of my mega tree 3D star topper. For anchoring the trunk, I did two things. I took two turnbuckles and removed the screw ends. The body just fit in the 3 inch pipe. I marked my holes and drilled through to allow the screws to be secured passing through the trunk pipe. This provided a stress free connection for the top guy wires. After testing the mast, I decide to ensure strength and stability, I measured 6 foot from the ground and drilled pass through holes at 90 degree point to allow a set of guys to pass through and be secured on the ground. This double set of guys proved very strong and even supported my extension ladder leaning against it with my weight. For the ground anchors for the guy wires, I used the large dog tie down screw anchors available at large pet store chains. I have used these for years to anchor outdoor decorations securely. As far as installation sequence, I centered the base, inserted the mast into the in-ground receiver and attached the guys at the 90 degree points to the anchors. The using a level, I leveled the base using snap tees at certain points around the bottom ring with the right length of 3/4 inch PVC pipe in the ground. Having a level base is important since the tree was designed for 100 light sets that are 24 foot long, enough to connect and up and back from the top. My design used 12,800 lights or a 128 sets of 100. Four colors were used with 32 sets each. I used sixteen slices around the circle and 32 channels, so there were two connected sets of each color in each slice. I also linked the front and back matching slices, so we had 8 red channels, 8 blue, 8 green, and 8 white for our effects. The setup worked beautifully and the slices looked very solid from a distance. In the picture of the base above, you can see may attachment screws. The pattern went R1, B1, G1, W1, R1, B1, G1, W1, R1, B1, G1, W1, R1, B1, G1, W1, R2, B2, G2, W2.......up to 8. Again. two sets of lights of each color connected together in each slice. Then it repeated on the back side. With 128 sets, I had 256 attachment points divided by 16 slices or 16 screws or attachments per slice, 4 of each color per slice. Since I had 8 channels of each color for LOR, you can see why the pattern repeated on the second half of the tree and they were connected buy extension cord. So as an example is a sweep is occuring in the sequence, a slice on both sides of the tree move together. The effects achievable with this setup were tremendous. PVC Frames For 2009, I wanted to "animate" some of the display with LOR controlling lighted segments of an object. We've all seen the wire frames and I considered those but they are very expensive and heavy plus eventually they will rust since they are steel. I also had seen Brian Mitchell's singing Christmas tree which I liked immensely and wanted to expand on the concept. So now, I had the concept for the solution and I had to figure out what to incorporate into the display. I had plans to ultimately animate a quartet of Bucky skulls (like the famous "Bone Tones") for Halloween using servo controllers boards that I was designing and testing. So, a quartet of 8 foot tall PVC frame skeletons made the list. For these, I planned to animate the mouths and the arms. My Christmas characters were somewhat more complex. My singing tree is very similar in function to Brian's with eyes and mouth movement. I added Santa who has arm and leg movement as well. I also added a snowman with moving arms. The last set of characters I decided to construct was a set of three singing and moving elves. My inspiration here was the display of Timothy Door who had large singing heads on his roof. In order to make the vision become reality, I figured I needed a minimum of 192 channels to add the animation circuits. So the first step was to add my "characters" to the sequences. My expanded sequences are on my sequences page on the web site. I worked and finally completed both Halloween and Christmas sequences. Where appropriate, I added my "singing/dancing" players to the show. All total, four eight foot skeletons for Halloween and three Elves (six feet tall or so), an eight foot Snowman, an eight foot Santa, and a seven foot Singing Tree for Christmas. One other design aspect is I will be using 3/8 inch incandescent rope light at 3 Watts per foot to light the frames. With a 35,000 lifetime on the bulbs (that's a lot of years), I couldn't justify the return on investment for LEDs at four times the cost. So, I began to think about how to achieve what I wanted and ultimately after one of those brainstorm, I came up with the concept of "PVC frames" instead of "wire frames". They would be light and will not corrode. I did my research and sketched out my ideas on paper. Ultimately, I created life size patterns.
I wanted to make reuseable patterns in case I pursued the idea of creating PVC kits as a sideline. In the pictures you can see examples of the patterns and fitting the PVC to the pattern. One of the concepts I latched on to was the idea of heating and bending the PVC for certain curves in the characters. Again, I Google'd PVC bending and finally decided on a good heat gun from Lowe's with variable heat. (Heat Gun) Most of the articles I read indicated using sand in the PVC to keep the PVC from kinking while bending. But again, my engineer brain thought about using a 3/4 inch tension spring instead. I finally found a source and bought two 3 foot long stainless steel springs. After testing the first bend I was very pleased with the result. I just insert the spring into the 3/4 inch PVC, heat the pipe with the heat gun around the area I want to bend and as soon as it softens, I bend it steadily to get my shape. The first picture shows the 3/4 inch spring. The second picture shows the 60 degree angles I created for the corners on the tree. You can buy a 60 degree coupling, but they were $55 a piece, OUCH! Easier to make them. I also bent the PVC for the top of the skeleton head in the third picture.
We have completed construction of the Halloween quartet and the six Christmas characters. The process of adding the rope light has begun! This is the fun part...bringing them to life. I only have one slightly fuzzy night shot of two of the skeletons, but you can see the arms in different positions. Once the LOR controllers are attached they will be able to sing and dance!
LOR Controller Boxes I have read many forum posts on how to protect your controllers from both weather and theft. After doing a lot of searching, I could not find exactly what I was looking for and then in Lowe's one day, my wife actually spotted these boxes. They are commercial grade storage made of an extremely strong and heavy duty composite plastic. They have dual lock tabs on the top plus a key lock on the front. The great thing is they hold four controllers with plenty of space. The controllers are mounted using 1/4-20 hardware. The boxes have a one and a half inch inner lip that no rain can penetrate when closed. You will see in the pictures how I mounted them. I also cut out two rows of rectangular sections (2x6 grid) on the bottom to allow cables to come up and in protecting them from the weather. To make this easily accessible I mounted the boxes on 4x4 legs/rests to give 4 inches of ground clearance. Once there are four controller in these with the 4x4 legs, no one is going to carry one off. However, I still run 1/2 inch Kevlar cables inside the two locks on the top and attach to a bush, tree, or ground anchor. I do not worry about losing my controllers. The boxes are $65 each but they are protecting expensive electronics. Well worth the investment. You will notice that I tie each bundle of 8 leads together. This greatly reduces tangling and confusion when connecting and disconnecting cables. You'll also see my primary box with the audio amplifier, Ramsey 110 transmitter, and the 1602W MP3 player. Each box is 64 channels. I had two boxes this year with 128 channels and a third box is awaiting arrival of four new controllers to bring the total to 192. The boxes were fanastic and provided the protection I was after.
The boxes have a one and a half inch inner lip that no rain can penetrate when closed. You will see in the pictures how I mounted them. I also cut out two rows of rectangular sections (2x6 grid) on the bottom to allow cables to come up and in protecting them from the weather. To make this easily accessible I mounted the boxes on 4x4 legs/rests to give 4 inches of ground clearance. Once there are four controllers in these with the 4x4 legs, no one is going to carry one off. However, I still run 1/2 inch Kevlar cables inside the two locks on the top and attach to a bush, tree, or ground anchor. I do not worry about losing my controllers. The boxes are $65 each but they are protecting $1500 of electronics. Well worth the investment. You will notice that I tie each bundle of 8 leads together. This greatly reduces tangling and confusion when connecting and disconnecting cables. You'll also see my primary box with the audio amplifier, Ramsey 110 transmitter, and the 1602W MP3 player. Each box is 64 channels. I had two boxes this year with 128 channels and a third box is awaiting arrival of four new controllers to bring the total to 192. The boxes were fanastic and provided the protection I was after. Enhancements for 2010 For 2010 we are expanding the Halloween display significantly. In combination with the LOR show, we have designed a "haunt" that includes multiple stations and attractions. The visitor will enter the "haunted path" through a lighted archway with an animatronix skull greeter. Once on the path, the visitor will encounter any number of animated characters including a grave grabber, , a pirate skeleton guarding a treasure chest, a flying crank ghost, an animated organ player, a haunted house with animated ghost, and an old style carriage hearse containing a quartet plus one (5) animatronix 3-axis skulls. This piece provides a mini-show within a show. The "singing group" in the hearse is lighted by a DMX light bar controlled by LOR Servo Dog and 1602W hardware. The "quartet" will sing a number of songs along with some humorous routines. Tombstones The expansion effort for Halloween was a lot of work but allowed me to try some new techniques such a foam carving with hot wire tools from the Hot Wire Foam Factory. The tombstones shown were all created using the foam carving techniques. Ideas were sketched on paper and then transfered to the foam using Sharpie pens. The Internet is full of sites that contain funny epitaphs to consider. Once the carving is done I coated the tombstones with a material called Drylok. Drylok comes in grey, tan, and white. I bought a can of white Drylok and had it tinted black as well as using "off the shelf" grey. Once the base coat of grey or black was applied, I used the "dry brush" technique to apply the highlights to the raised surfaces. The results are in the pictures. The interesting things about Drylok are: it is water proof and it contains a small amount of sand which makes it feel like stone/granite/concrete. We were very pleased with the final product! I have quite a number of commercial tombstones but they are not nearly as realistic as the ones I designed and created from scratch. My originals are one of a kind!
Gargoyle The gargolye is a piece I picked last year, but never really used. Once into the tombstone design effort I came up with the idea of creating a fake stone pedestal which would allow me to use a power supply instead of batteries. The gargoyle is movement activated. He speaks and spreads/shakes his wings when activated.
Underwater Pirate Skeleton The "underwater" pirate sekleton will be contained the diorama shown in the picture. He is also animated and talks with moving jaw and flashing eyes.
The Flying Crank Ghost and Mausoleum One of my most ambitious creations this year is a prop called a "Flying Crank Ghost". Once constructed, the "ghost" exhibits
very real movements. When combined with black light and glowing red eyes, the glowing apparition is a real eye catcher. I constructed the
ghost first based on instructions found here, FCG Instructions.
Of course any self-respecting ghost needs a mausoleum to haunt. The mausoleum serves two purposes. It protects the ghost from the weather and from curious haunters. I had seen various designs but all were difficult to store and very heavy to move around. Since I had decided not to use the lighted Christmas presents made of PVC pipe, I had 16, 4x6x1 foot pvc boxes to use for other things. I came up with designs for the mausoleum, a pipe organ, and a carriage style hearse that would use the rectangles without any modification. The ghost mounts on 1x6 boards attached to the overhead inside the mausoleum. Just inside the gates in the overhead, I mounted a 48 inch black light to make her glow. In the pictures you can see through the mausoleum. Upon erection for Halloween, I will mount black plastic inside and on the rear to seal the enclosure from the weather. I also plan to place a new Vortex cold fog machine inside and let the fog roll out the front into the rest of the haunted yard. One last touch will be the mounting of two electric flame bowls on the front corners. I haven't decided yet whether to light the eyes of the small skull on the peak at the front.
The Witch My next most ambitious project was a witch that talks and moves her head and arms while stirring her cauldron of bubbling ooze. A few pictures of the witch is shown below! The plans for constructing the witch are found here, Witch Project Instructions. The completed witch is life size and has very realistic motion. Two independent motors drive the stirring arms and the turning head. My wife is going to make the cape and clothes that will cover the witch's frame. We found great Halloween fabrics on sale during the winter. The witch has two routines one being the famous witch scene from Macbeth..."double, double, toil and trouble". I have blended in the spoken routine with a bubbling cauldron sound effect using Audacity.
"> The video is not my witch but mine is identical except for a key enhancement. My witch talks and has synchronized mouth movement! I use the Scary Terry card from Cowlacious Designs driven by a small digital MP3 card. There are several choices of MP3 cards for prop use that I have listed below. I have one or more of each so I can vouch for these. MP3 Cards The Witch's Lair To protect the witch from the weather and provide a better attraction for the haunters, I constructed a "shanty" to use for the witches lair. This also requires the viewer to be aligned with the shanty to see the witch at work. This concept will work well to keep the haunters moving along the path. Due to the size needed I designed the structure using 1 1/2 inch PVC. For the roof of the shanty and mausoleum I used the 4x8 PVC sheets used to make all the small signs you see along the road sides. Again the exterior walls are constructed of carved 2 inch foam. I used a line pattern to try and achieve a plank look. After the carving, the usual Drylok coat and them used several colors of latex paint to achieve my old board look and feel. The sheet PVC was painted to provide an old rusted tin rook look. Of course, everything I design has to be able to be broken down for storage. The concepts worked well!
The Hearse I had to figure out how to protect the singing skulls from the weather. After thinking and sketching for a while, I came up with the idea of an old style carriage hearse. If this concept protected caskets in the old days, it should work for my animated quartet. So, we did some designing...looking at skull sizes and spacing and it turned out I could use more of my pvc rectangles to form the basic structure. As you can see from the construction pictures, I used the PVS sheet for the roof. To fill in the ends of the curved roof, I made paper templates and transferred the shape to 2 inch foam. I then carved the pieces using a Hot Wire foam tool and glued them in place with a foam safe Liquid Nails product. I cut a plywood form for the floor of the hearse. We applied flat black acrylic enamel all over. One interesting piece to solve was the wheels. I looked at using real wagon wheels but the cost was prohibitive. So we cut circles of plywood and mounted them to 1 1/2 inch PVC axles. I had planned from the beginning to outline the hearse with purple rope light to give the hearse a "ghostly" apperance.I carefully measured the opening in the hearse to establish the size of the "stage" that would be slid into place. The stage would hae the animated skulls and electronics mounted to it to allow separate storage and maintenance. The construction of the stage went well and the arrival of the skulls was an exciting day. Once mounted in place and connected to the LOR Servo dog controllers we connected to the PC and used the LOR software to develop and tweak the sequences. As you will see in the Quartet section the stage totally independent of the hearse but totally protected when slid into place. A black plastic curtain on the front top will be able to be lowered to completely enclose the stage if the weather is bad and the show is cancelled. Originally I had planned to light the skulls using spotlights, but during some Google research sessions I saw an add for DMX LED lightbars. I read about how they worked..researched how DMX worked with LOR and soon a Chauvet Colorstrip DMX light bar (3 feet long with RGB leds) and LOR DMX interface was on its way to me. I made the mistake of ordering a "refurbished" one first which did no even power up when it arrived. After a quick return and order of a new one, a good one arrived. It took a little experimentation to learn how it worked with the LOR software, but once we figured it out it was easy to get any color and effect we wanted for the skulls. The end result is exciting. I have included a sample video of the quartet below in the Quartet section. It will give you the idea of what the show will do.
The Quartet Even though I call the group a quartet, there is a 5th skull in the front we refer to as Mr.Head who participates in some songs and humorous exchanges. The skulls were acquired from Graveyard Skulls. They are an excellent product and the best deal going for a 3-axis skull. The skulls allow control of 6 functions, 3 axes of direction (turn, tilt, nod), the jaw for speech, and the right/left and up/down motion of the eyes. Very realistic when controlled using all 6. For control I chose the LOR Servo Dog controller combined with a 1602W + MP3 controller. The 1602W also allows me full control of the DMX LED light bar. The Chauvet DMX512 has 512 super bright leds broken into red, blue, and green arrays. There are 128 red, 128 blue, and 128 green leds each broken into 8 equal RGB sections across the bar. The RGB capability allows endless color production by varying intensity just like a color TV. Combined with the LOR controller and software, I can change color as the mood of the song or sound changes and even produce simulated lightning when needed. Very cool! Details about the LOR DMX controller driving the light bar are contained here LOR iDMX 1000 Guide. For the show, I created some of my own sequences and routines and borrowed a couple from the master, Bob Robertson, and his group, Sindy Skinless and the Decomposers. For this year the quartet show consists of Monster Mash, Scream Scream Scream, Grave Yard Rock, I'm Dreaming of a Whole Body, With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm, and Helter Skelter. Keep in mind this is like a mini-show for the haunters on foot in addition to the broadcast LOR light show going to the cars.
The Organ The last big addition is the organ. For several years, I used a Gemmy inflatable organ with ghost dancers. Last year a motor finally failed and I decide to replace is with something more permanent and hopefully more eye catching. I again used some of my recycled Christmas PVC rectangles after sketching what I wanted to achieve. Deciding on what to use for pipes took some time. I looked at acryclic pipe for the sizes I needed but way too expensive. So we settled on good old white thin wall PVC. They are painted flourescent as I will have two large multi-LED black light spots controlled by the LOR electronics. The keyboard was another decision that took some time. We thought about the keyboard from a junk piano but the weight would have been too much. So we finally used Craig's list to find a cheap electronic keyboard and proceeded to lobotimize it. I have red rope light run under the keys to flash with the musid and illuminate the keys. I have also outlined the organ in yellow rope light. The coup 'd gras not show in the pics is a full sized Bucky skeleton as the player who will move back and forth to appear as is he is really playing. I also animated his skull to be able to talk and sing. He will be mounted to the bench in front of the keyboard. The props are light and easy to move. Being light means having a good anchor system. We use a combination of 12 inch spikes through the supports on the ground or the screw in anchors with black line. We haven't lost any of the props in the past so our scheme seems to work well.
More to come! We'll add more content and pictures as we develop. |
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