Halloween

[zwiller]

Things every self respecting diy Halloween Haunt needs: fog machine with "vortex" chiller, pvc cemetary fence, and pvc candles...   

I do a show on trick or treat night only.  Setup and tear down same night.  I usually drag out my par cans but will do some creepy aether fades this year.  Best part about my haunt is playing some choice tunes mixed with the traditional spooky stuff over the dj rig.  Neighborhood comes alive.  Of course, my homebrewed pumpkin ale on draft don't hurt either...

[grumpy2076]

Heres how im planing on building my fence

[Halstaff]

I don't have pictures with me but you can see my fence in my video - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

[bcstuff]

Wowser, how are you going to have time for a Christmas Display.

[rrawlings]

mkozik1    Could you get a little more elaborate?  Sounds like Vegas already    I don't think I will ever get to that point, I am impressed.

[mkozik1]

We do a little bit for Halloween!!  Built a ship this year and had cannons firing smoke but instead of just letting the smoke billow out when the fogger did it's thing, I built a common tube between the three cannons, added a damped from a shop vac system and attached it to a modified screen door closer so that when the sound triggered, the damper open and a modified sprinkler valve would force air out the cannon.  The cool part was the smoke rings we got from it!

This year I want to add two additional cannons in the trail each with talking pirates.  These will be placed diagonally on each side of the trail and will be dark until folks walk through at which time the closest one will light up and say something to the other one, light the cannon, the cannon will fire and the other pirate will light up and will be standing in a pol of water which will shoot some water at the guest simulating the cannon ball hitting the water.  The other pirate (down the trail a bit) will fire back and a blast of air against a tree will fire hampster shavings at the guest from behind simulating the cannon ball hit the tree.

Could not do that this year because there are too many things that have to be syncronized to do it.  Now that I found this and Vixen, I think I have a pretty good shot at this.  All the sound and lighting will be through this product and the triggers for the cannons and air shots will be from the MR16 as my valves all run off of 12 vDC.

The pirate has a three axis skull so he can nod, move side to side and tilt as well as talk.  The ships wheel moves back and forth using a wiper motor.

I attached a couple of images for grins.  We're pretty proud of it!

[mkozik1]

Here is a shot of our fence as well.  I like the columns that Grumpy2076 did and plan those for this year and love the tops of Zwillers - How did you do those?  Did you heat the PVC and then crimp it?

[bcstuff]

Alright lets see what else I can add about Toppers for the PVC fence...
See the pics below for what I did with my 1/2 pvc and 1x2 fence. I would recommend staining the PVC over painting though.

I bought actual finials for real fences, put the heat gun on the top of the pipe and slid them on.
I bought mine from here and originally paid $0.16 each and free shipping.
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The posts between were just 1 1/2 PVC with foam skulls painted black on top.

My pneumatics were screen door closers converted to actuators. 

Mkozik1,
I would recommend swapping out your screen door closer pneumatics for real pneumatic cylinders for safety and to prevent liability.
They cannot handle very much pressure and when you have failure it is a steel rod missle!
Here is a reasonable source for real pneumatic cylinders:
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[mkozik1]

Brian - I agree, this was my first year doing this and I was not even sure it was going to work the way I had in my head!  I appreciate the site you provided, but I will need some with a longer throw.  These are 3/4" and 1 1/16" and I really need one longer.  If you know where I can get those, please let me know!

Mark - Georgia

[bcstuff]

Mark the throw for pneumatic cylinders is the stroke. When you click on the cylinders you can choose the stroke that you need at the bottom of the page.

The single action have a stroke up to 4", but if you go double action you can get up to 12"

[mkozik1]

Wow - I feel like a real a**!!  Did not look that far down on the page.  Thanks again for your guidence.  This will certainly make things better this year!

Take care,

Mark - Georgia

[PJNMCT]

Mkozik,

It looks like you have a PLC working the cannons. Can you elaborate?

-Paul

[zwiller]

Here is a shot of our fence as well.  I like the columns that Grumpy2076 did and plan those for this year and love the tops of Zwillers - How did you do those?  Did you heat the PVC and then crimp it?

Yep basically. Heat gun, PVC cement, and jourgenson clamp.  Heat it up, throw in some glue, and clamp. Tin snip to trim, grind, and sand.  I named em frugal finials since they were free for me to make. Use a cardboard template to mark them up so they turn out the same.  Also I used hot glue where the PVC meets the wood. Stiffened up greatly and it looks just like real welds once pained.

[mkozik1]

Zwiller - I like that, I will have to give it a try!  I used my heat gun last year and formed hearts for the wife out cpvc and that worked pretty good.  Now I just need RGBs!!

PJNMCT - Yup it is, I used this to trigger all of the cannon functions.  They were set on a timer triggering a cowlicious sound board for the "bang" and then the damper and air nozzle worked off the same air valve.  This worked very well.  I have a couple of other PLCs throughout allowing me to have multiple functions happen from one trigger.  Works good in part of the haunt but need more synchronization in other areas.  Also looking to use the servo controller here for my 3 axis skulls instead of the ssc32 that I have been using.  Again, it will allow more functionality especially with the dualing pirates.

[PJNMCT]

What brand are you using and how do they communicate?

Thanks,
-Paul