# This Year's Big Prop



## Zombie-F (Apr 12, 2004)

*sigh*

So, I've decided to pull a complete 180° and build a HUGE animated prop for this year... or at least start it this year and maybe finish it next year.

What prompted me to do this was the discovery of an electronics kit that allows you to program a series of 8 relays to do your bidding that has a built-in PIC controller. This means it's a kit that you program through your computer's serial port and then can disconnect from the PC and have it perform its programmed function on it's own.

I plan on triggering the unit with a PIR kit.

The prop I plan on building around these circuits is a small 4' wide x 8' deep x 12' high crypt that will have a faux steel cage door and caged windows. When the TOT gets close enough to trigger the prop, first, I want a pair of LED eyes to fade up while the sound of a large creature's deep breathing starts up. Then, I'll have a motor start "rattling" the cage door, followed by the door bursting open, the crypt filling with red light and the monster jumps out via a scissor extender powered by either air or an electric motor. I'm thinking air since a motor may move too slowly to be effective.

At the very least, I'd like to have the crypt built this year, as well as the creature within. I'll be playing with the relay kit as well, but since I'll also need an air compressor and some other electronic goodies to make this all happen, I may not have the money to finish it all this year. This one is a HUGE undertaking.

The Crypt itself will consist of some 1 x 4 panels that will assemble to form the frame and roof. The panels will have insulation foam glued on and have a granite block pattern carved and painted onto it. The cage door and windows will be made from good old reliable PVC pipes.

Here's some links to the circuits I'll be using for this project:

Kit 108: Serial Isolated I/O Module
Kit 30: PIR Movement Detector


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## Zombie-F (Apr 12, 2004)

Just thinking... I'll also have to construct a small fence around this so the TOTs don't get too close and get bonked by the monster jumping out. I don't need any lawsuits.


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## Zombie-F (Apr 12, 2004)

I also just came to the conclusion that in order for alot of this to happen, I'll have to learn how to program BASIC Stamps... which are small microcontrollers you can program to control motors, circuits, etc... The Kit 108 can be programmed to tell the Relays to do open or close, but it all happens simultaneously. In order to do things like have relay 1 trigger at one time and have relay 2 and 3 trigger together 5 seconds later, you need to have something tell it to do that stuff and the BASIC Stamp is the way to go.

I'm off to Radio Shack now to get my learner kit for this. Looks like I'll be busy for a while.


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## Nightshade (Feb 26, 2005)

Zombie-F This project sounds awsome. I wish I had your computer and electronic smarts to put together something similar. Of course I am suffering from a haunters worst nightmare. Running out of storage space. I had a Heartland shed built in my back yard two years ago and it's full. I've long ago stopped putting the car in the garage, besides that is also my work shop where all my tools reside, not to mention storing the other half of my large props. Best of luck with this project.


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## shadow (Aug 9, 2004)

I used the old kit 174 on my coffin. I had an old computer that i just use solely for the prop. It only needs to have Windows 95 on it so you can use sound clips playing on the media player. The sound comes out the computer speakers. the programming is a heck of a lot easier this way.

www.spookylake.com


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## Zombie-F (Apr 12, 2004)

The company I work for is upgrading alot of pcs, so I'm going to be getting one of the old ones for free to use to drive the kit 108. I'll even do as you suggest and use sound clips on the PC to go along with it.

Now, if only I could get all this new snow to melt.


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## shadow (Aug 9, 2004)

*Sound Clips*

In my program i use the sound clips as timers. My program is a very basic dos based script....one line of script will not progress to the next line until the first function completes. Now, if I execute a relay in line one....it will immediateley go to the next line, however, the air cylinder may be set to go really slow so the second line executes a sound clip that may play for 15 seconds. This gives my cylinder time to finish.
EX:
line 1 10000000 "executes relay #1"
line 2 11000000 "holds relay #1 open and opens relay #2"
line 3 Delay 25 "delays 25 counts"
line 4 00000001 "closes all relays except for opening relay #8"
line 5 run ghost.wav "executes a sound clip named ghost.wav"

This is it in a nutshell. The sound file is actually converted into an executable file (.exe) and such but you get the picture.


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## mrhalloween (Aug 21, 2005)

How much did you pay for the kit? According to the website, he doesn't do direct sales!~There are links to some of his vendors and Electronics123.com,Inc.
http://www.electronics123.com/s.nl/sc.1/.f
has the kit for $50.30, but you can get it all assembled for $58.85! 
I'd rather spend the other 8$ and not have to worry about it!


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## Zombie-F (Apr 12, 2004)

I bought it from Electronics123. Sadly, I was unable to finish the crypt due to lack of funds to buy the foam for the walls. Long story.. Search the forums and you'll find out why.


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