# Singing Pumpkins using servos



## dionicia

Ok, someone gave me this idea last year and you know how ideas can sit and fester. Well after last Halloween, I decided to make some singing pumpkins to entertain the TOTs.

The parts list is so far:

-4 425BB Hitec servos
-1 Linxmotion controller
-4 single-channel LED boards (made by azdude) for the eyes
-4 Foam Pumpkins
-4 servo extensions
-4 Lucite plates (this will hold the pumpkin and the servo)
-4 servo brackets (made by 5artist5)

I've included pictures of the foam pumpkins before and after I cut out the mouth parts as well as a picture of the single-channel LED boards (I turned the boards over as the design for those belongs to azdude so if you want it you will need to contact him).

I still need to cut out the Lucite plates to hold the pumpkins and take pictures of those. 

Still more to come.


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## 5artist5

Wow, that is looking great so far! I cant wait to see a vid clip of them singing!


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## The Archivist

dioncia I love your signature line... That is so perfect!


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## Mr_Chicken

This looks promising! I'll be watching...


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## Zombies Anonymous

I would love a full How to on this....


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## Sickie Ickie

Me too! It seems like I never have enough time or moola for a 3 axis, but this may be doable!


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## DarkLore

Sickie Ickie said:


> Me too! It seems like I never have enough time or moola for a 3 axis, but this may be doable!


Hmmm...total the item list up. I think you'll find the cost to be more than your first impression.


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## dionicia

DarkLore you forget the best thing of all...sales! I got the Pumpkins for 60% off after Halloween last year and I'm working on multiple servos via a certain online auction site everybody knows. I had the Lucite lying around from an earlier abandoned Xmas project from years ago (tried to make picture frames as gifts). If you buy a kit, you can make your own servo extensions (discovered that with the 3-axis skulls) cheaper than buying them.

I wasn't going to do LEDs for the eyes, but azdude mentioned it might look good so I thought I would give it a try (that and he built them to work with the controller which was very cool).

I'll try to price everything out, but this will work out to be WAY less than a 3 axis skull. The reason I know is I built 8 of the 3-axis skulls last year and that was a bit pricey (but fun). 

P.S. Group Buys help too.


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## DarkLore

I love servo driven stuff. Keep going. I want to see the whole build in progress.


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## dionicia

Hi. I was checking around and I found a place online that sells the linxmotion controllers that offers a discount on multiple quantity orders (10 for $37.95 each and 25 for $36.05) other wise each is still $39.95. The servos they sell for $14.99, but for 10 the price drops to $14.39 and for more than 25 the price drops to $13.81. http://www.robotshop.us is the website if you want to look around. If there is enough interest, I might try getting a group buy on some basic parts started.


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## dionicia

Wow. It's been a while since I purchased the VSA program from Brookshire. They want $59.95 for it. If anyone has a cheaper software program that can be used just as easily as VSA, please let me know.


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## hedg12

Vixen is free and can control servos, but I'm not sure it's compatible with the Lynxmotion controller.

I love this idea. The mouths remind me of some of Henson's muppets. I eagerly await your results!


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## dionicia

I looked through the download section of the Vixen website and it doesn't appear that the Linxmotion controller is compatible. Still checking though.


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## dionicia

I found that the Parallax Servo Controller is compatible with Vixen and it's on sale for $20 bucks. http://www.parallax.com/Store/Acces...efault.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName


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## hedg12

Before you dive in, you might want to ask around at the Vixen forums. I tried to use Vixen with the Parallax board & it worked fine, but programming was difficult at best. There have been murmurings of an improved interface for servo programming, but I'm not sure if it's generally available yet. If you ask around, you can probably get the beta / pre-release version to use. It's do-able without it, but I'm sure it would probably be easier with it.


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## dionicia

Good to know hedg. Thank you for the heads up.


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## dionicia

I just opened up my linxmotion controller box today and happily discovered I have more room than I thought for servos. 

I have to send it over to a good friend to fix as I broke one of the power connectors on one side last year but if all goes well, I can hook up all 4 pumpkins and vincent and just use one computer to run it. 

I have to buy a few rolls of servo cable and make up a bunch of connectors. 

This is going to be a blast. 

I was just thinking this might be a good how-to if you want to make a magic mirror or talking painting. The possibilities are endless.


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## dionicia

I just found a deal on servos so I posted a group buy thread http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=16532.


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## dionicia

The brackets arrived the last week along with the servos and I finished making the plastic plates to hold everything together. 

I have to work on the mouths of the pumpkins to make sure they fit after the hinges are installed.

This is what I have done so far.

P.S. I have paper eyes on the pumpkin right now as I am trying to find the right eyes for the pumpkins that will look good with the LEDs. More to come.


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## hpropman

looking good can't wait to see a video of them talking


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## dionicia

Mad Scientist log supplemental...installing the servo plate works TONS better if you scalp the little...pumpkins  and work from the back and either add a hinge for later maintenance or glue the scalp back on.


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## Daphne

This is so cool! I can't wait to see them working!


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## dionicia

Just an update, my servo extensions from servocity.com arrived today, the pumpkins have had their innards installed and have been hooked up to the servo controller (yippie). Gonna take pics and check the MAX/MIN on the servos and then give them a run through. 

I need to find an MP3 of "This is Halloween" from a Nightmare Before Christmas as I want this to be the test song. Mainly....BECAUSE IT'S STUCK IN MY HEAD!!!!!


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## Mr_Chicken

Why do you need servo extensions?


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## dionicia

So I have some distance between the SSC-32 and the pumpkins.


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## fritz42_male

dionicia said:


> I need to find an MP3 of "This is Halloween" from a Nightmare Before Christmas as I want this to be the test song. Mainly....BECAUSE IT'S STUCK IN MY HEAD!!!!!


Curse you and Tim Burton!!!

You just started it going round in my head now - I'm going to set the Oogie Boogie man on you!

Has anyone here done a Tim Burton themed haunt? I'm tempted to do one for 2010.


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## Mr_Chicken

dionicia said:


> So I have some distance between the SSC-32 and the pumpkins.


Oh, gotcha! I thought you were talking about something else.

Keep us posted!


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## hpropman

I have the nightmare before Christmas CD and I can make the MP3's of any song you want on it. I picked it up at amazon and might do some singing pumpkins this year with lights though not moving mouths. If yours comes out nice maybe I will steal ahem, I mean borrow your idea.


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## dionicia

Once I get the VSA working (always happens when I get ready to use it that nothing happens at first). I'm going to do a test run and then take video.


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## 5artist5

Looking great dionicia! Can't wait to see them sing!


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## dionicia

I'm still having trouble getting the stupid VSA to work. As soon as I can get the software working, I can take video. I had this same problem last year and for the life of me I can't remember how I fixed it.


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## dionicia

I got em workin! HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!

I need to find a WAV that is nice and clear so the mouth movements look good. Then...video!

HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!


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## dionicia

Here is the final results. Need to tweek the programming a bit.


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## randyaz

Excellent !!!!


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## Dr Morbius

Terrific job! I agree, most excellent!


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## IMU

Very nice indeed!


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## Mr_Chicken

Very cool! They look superb!


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## Bone To Pick

Fantastic job on those, dionicia!! Wow!!


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## Devils Chariot

That is so rad!!!


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## halloween71

Looks great!
Full how to pleaseeeee.


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## hpropman

I like the movement nice work


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## dionicia

halloween71 said:


> Looks great!
> Full how to pleaseeeee.


Page 2 of this thread has the pictures of the servo inside the mouth on one of the pumpkins.

If you have any questions, just let me know.


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## spinman1949

*Great*

I like the eye effect. Just got my Lynx board. Hope to start assembling my 3 axis skull soon.


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## 5artist5

That came out Great!!


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## Daphne

Absolutely wonderful!! Beautiful job!


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## The Watcher

Very Nice! Love the action you got out of them.


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## dionicia

Thank you. I just found out someone is going to make a mailbox talk using a servo. I can't wait to see that.


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## jjm2958

Thanks for the inspiration Dionicia! Here is my attempt. I hooked up a gamepad to VSA and recorded each track/pumpkin separately. I still need to go back and tweak it, but I was pleased with how it turned out.

I'm using an SSC32 controller with VSA. I'm curious how you got the lights to work. I think that would add a lot to mine.

Singing Pumpkins Take 1

Jared


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## jjm2958

Oops - messed up the link and can't figure out how to edit my post.

Fixed link



jjm2958 said:


> Thanks for the inspiration Dionicia! Here is my attempt. I hooked up a gamepad to VSA and recorded each track/pumpkin separately. I still need to go back and tweak it, but I was pleased with how it turned out.
> 
> I'm using an SSC32 controller with VSA. I'm curious how you got the lights to work. I think that would add a lot to mine.
> 
> Singing Pumpkins Take 1
> 
> Jared


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## dionicia

My buddy azdude hooked me up with PC boards that let you control the LED 'eyes' using the servo controller that work the same way the servo motors do. He just launched his website and is selling them at www.pimpmyprop.com.

How did you use the gamepad to program the servos...for that matter what's a gamepad?


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## dionicia

Those turned out really good Jared. Very smooth movements.


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## mtf66

*Mtf66*

Would Love To Get A How To On The Pumpkins


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## dionicia

Page 2 number 18 of the thread shows how the servo is attached inside the pumpkin. I drilled a hole in the back to feed the servo wires out the back and then hot glued a piece of fabric in the mouth the hide the insides. That's about it. If you have any questions, just let me know.


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## tazz

Great job on the pumpkins. I would love a how to on the wiring. How you hooked
each servo to the board. How did you get each pumpkin to sing separate.


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## dionicia

The linxmotion controller has a space for 32 servos. I just used 48" servo extension cables. If you want to go longer, you can use CAT5 cable or thermostat cable. My preference is thermostat cable.


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## vista

*item list*

I have trouble what equipment you finally ended up with and which program you used to program out to the servos.

I normally use a EFX-Tek prop 1 board so I'm unsure about the visual aspects of VSA or lynx or RS232... you get my drift I hope.

As I can guess my way through it. VSA is loaded on a PC the RS232 board (or what you finally ended up with) is installed in the PC in a spare slot. then wires go from there to one or more servos... (or is there another board between the computer and the servo?)

Do you have white noise to go out to the servo to make the mouth go up and down in time to the voices or do you actually send out the voice track.. Assuming you have a copy with all the voices on their own channel... I'm assuming it's just white noise in certain channels and certain time periods and this mean all you have to do is get the timing to the song... I don't think any of us have the song in 4-8 channels broken out for each voice and music.

A standard mp3 would be just two channels... so I'm curious... as to the whole setup...

Thanks


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## dionicia

The Linxmotion board is separate from my computer and is housed in a separate box. I use a RS232 to USB cable to connect my computer to the Linxmotion controller. The servos then connect to the controller.

VSA does an analysis of the WAV (music) and assigns servo movement based on the results. I then went in and edited those moves based on which pumpkin would sing. Brookeshire explains more about how VSA works on their website www.brookshiresoftware.com. Have you had a chance to check it out?


















This is a controller box similar to the one I made. The only difference is that I abandoned CAT5 cables in favor of thermostat cables.


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## mickkell

That is an awesome job,I hope when we retire to Peoria next year we can meet at an AZHAUNTERS get together.


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## dionicia

Cool. Glad to have another haunter in the valley.


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## mickkell

Thanks,Im looking forward to nice weather and fellow haunters.
You wont mind if i pick you brain will you?lol
Your going to be really close to us in Peoria,course everything is really close around there.


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## dionicia

I don't know about close. I had to drive to the norther part of Peoria once and I was surprised how far it was. You never know though.


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