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Pirates of the Carribbean Halloween


BlakeGravitt

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If you've got the dough, there's a far better option than the Wow lights bust. The Wow lights bust is actually a poorly done ripoff of the Ghost Bust by Night Frights.

I started off with an Ultra Projector, spent my whole season trying to come up with some decent video when I should have been working on the other hundred props I wanted to get done that year. Ended up hating it, and decided to bite the bullet and shell out the cash for the ghost bust we found at www.nightfrights.net OMG - the thing is freakin' awesome!

My wife loved it so much, we set a new precedent... every year, instead of buying a bunch of cheap crap at the Spirit store, we invest in one kick-butt prop. It's now three years later and we've got a haunt that rivals anything the big amusement parks do. We've got folks driving in from two states away to see our setup. (My kids are so proud). ; )

My advice, save up all year and get the real deal props, you'll never regret it.

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i have been playing with the projector works good easy to use they have free download software to make avi convirsen the only trouble i had was program would go to 99% done and stop found out you would just say finished and it worked fine i has a 2 gig card built in i pun about 25 3 min videos in it sti have about a gige left i used shower certon liner workes real good got it wally world $4 dollars

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  • 1 month later...

That's them!

Totally rockin'! Great customer support, fantastic products. Got their new Scary Mary Mirror (Bloody Mary Mirror) and it's the most freakin awesome prop I've ever laid eyes on. These guys get it.

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I built abt 14 talking skulls using Lynxmotion SSC32 controller, Futaba servos for the jaw, and VisualServoAnimation from BrookshireSoftware for my pirates.. take a look at my youtube page, scroll down to Halloween 2009 Pirates Cannon Battle, Pirates Of The Black Tide and Pirates Life Fer Me videos..

teege

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EDIT: Let me start off by saying great work with your Halloween display TJ. I watched almost every video this morning, I kinda jumped the gun with my questions, but excellent work nontheless....

I have been looking at the Brookshire software for a few months now. I wanted to get through this Halloween and start a servo project for next year.

What do you think about it? Pretty user friendly? Is the Lynxmotion SSC32 controller able to handle a SD memory card or do you have a laptop connected to the controller?

The other issue I couldn't work through in my head was the wired connection between the actual servo and the controller.....How far away is your controller to the individual servos? Just hardwiring the distance?

Thanks in advance for a servo newbie......

Blake

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I LOVE working with Brookshire and Lynxmotion.. for several years I had worked out a group buy discount with Brookshire for a discounted price on VSA, and the Lynxmotion for their SSC32 for the folks on http://www.HalloweenForum.com .. I also got a business lic to buy in bulk servos (bought 4000+) from Futaba and a local hobby shop.. got abt $2 off each servo.. saved a LOT of $$.. resold at that cost too, forum member just paid flat rate shipping, as many were in areas that they couldnt ge the servos we were using.

As to using a SD card, no, (at least on any of the SSC32 cards I have..) it has to be plugged into a computer/laptop serial port.. I tried using a USB-Serial with little success.. some have said they got theirs working, but I never could, so I have several older desktop machines with serial ports I connect the controllers to.

Distance.. well, I ran abt 50' serial cable btwn the computer (house front bedroom) to the controller which sat on the ship's deck, and I used btwn 10'-25' Cat5 between the controller and the servos.. as the DC current requirement are fairly low, I used Cat5, the solid colors run power to each servo, the striped colors ran the commands from the controller to the servo. I used a wifi router wallwart (5vdc) to power the SSC32. It put out 2.5A so it would easily run the 9 jaw servos and they would sing intermitantly (low current demands) and I had a second controller (and another wallwart) running the 5 skellys in the treasure cave and the jail (garage). This year I've got a 20A, 5vdc bench supply to power all four servos in each head, giving me full three-axis motion and speech.

The very first skull I bought was a http://www.cowlacious.com/ bucky skull kit.. was $30 I think.. not bad, but I quickly saw that unless I was going to use high-torque (and high $$) servos, the bucky's weren't going to work as they are very heavy resin, and the servos just werent going to sling the heads around fast enough to look good. So we found Lindberg skulls (http://www.lindberg-models.com/71302_pirate_skull.htm for $8/ea (another group buy).. There are a LOT on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=lindberg+skull The Bucky's were $15/ea but better formed. Lindbergs are the human skull models you see in hobby stores, abt $12 retail. LOTS lighter, and can be glued on.. cut the plaxiglass plate to size, cut holes for the servos, mount the hardware, plug it in (Cat5), and start nodding :P Scary Terry (http://www.scary-terry.com/) has a really good primer page to making talking skulls. Cowalicious has a skull kit for $85, (http://www.cowlacious.com/st-400-skull-kit/) (jaw only), so that might be a cheaper way to go if he has them in stock..

Each skull cost me abt $110 to build (I've got 14).. thats Lindberg skull (hobby shop), 4 servos (also hs), 3-axis pivot hardware (http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-rod-ends/=eftjo9), plexi-plate (HomeDepot), cat5 cable. If you want to include moving eyes (yes you can do that too), it adds abt $75-$90 depending which micro servos you use.

Using VSA is totally different from using S2.. In VSA, you click in the grid to set the speed and amount of servo movement to rotate, nod or tilt the head, or open/close the jaw. Whats really nice abt VSA is you can import an audio file with just the spoken words and it approximately moves the jaw servo the correct amount, well pretty close.. so you make a recording of the song using just your voice, no music, singing along to the song your listening to with earphones. It sets the movement markers, Next, import the actual song you just sang to, and you've got your singing skelly!! You sing the parts of each of the other skulls (think 3-part/4-part harmony) and import to each jaw servo and you've got a skelly band, or singin' swabs..









Attached files 269429=14911-Awaitin

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Excellent, excellent information. I think this is what I needed to push me over the edge and jump into this. I cannot thank you enough for the information and links you provided.

It really does make a little more sense to me now. Also, nice catch on the serial ports instead of USB-serial, which is the route I was going to try. I am definitely going to start ordering some parts as soon as I get through this Halloween.

I may have more questions for you shortly, but thank you so much for providing this information.

Cheers

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TJ Hvasta wrote:


I used btwn 10'-25' Cat5 between the controller and the servos.. as the DC current requirement are fairly low, I used Cat5, the solid colors run power to each servo, the striped colors ran the commands from the controller to the servo.
TJ, Did you strip then wire the cat 5 to the servos, or did you put a cat 5 connector in the skull? Could you take a close up pic? Brilliant idea btw, computer tech here and I never thought of that!
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I stripped/soldered a long Cat5 pigtail (abt 20') for each skull, so the colors carried the command and the striped carried the power(5vdc), so each skull had a 20+ foot Cat5 cable that plugged into the controller (see pic above).

The SSC32 went into a breakout box, Cat5 socket faceplace, sockets (REEEEEALLY expensive, abt $5 each) so I lopped off the Cat5 plug, stripped the wires back and soldered the servo connectors to the end of the Cat5 cable, plugged them right into the controller. So really, if you can find heavy enough (Cat5-type-cable on a spool), go with that rather than Cat5 extensions, unless you've got a cheap supply of sockets. I used just the first 4 skulls with the sockets, I cut off the plug end of the cat5 for the other 10 skulls.

One trouble I did have was the breakpout box didnt really give enough room for the faceplate, sockets, wiring clearance aboove the board. If you pick a deeper box, you should be ok. I describe using the USB-Serial converter.. it did work, but was too unreliable, so I went with the DB-9 serial connector on the laptop.

If you go to my youtube page, down towards the last videos, I have the cabling for the skulls I did, made it a lot easier to just shoot video and see it rather than trying to type and explain it..

The color code I used begins at 1:20.. oops, just saw the video runs out before I finish which colors went where, but you get the idea. I used solid colors for the command line, and striped for power(ground).. I think in the last post I wrote, solid was the power, stiped ran the commands.. its reversed..



Attached files 269570=14919-MyControllerBox.jpg
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.. like a cate'pilla' becomes.. 24' long.. 8' wide.. 3 masts, 16', 22' & 24' tall..

10 talkin'.. singin'.. insultin'.. skellys shall be me crew..
A weather eye I shall keep open fer storms (some wind) next few days, so masts shall go up after then..

Attached files 269944=14937-2011-10-12_16-33-40_301.jpg

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TJ.....Excellent ship. You have inspired me to start on one myself!! I will post pictures along the way. Can I ask what you used for masts?

I just found 4 pcs of 8" diameter PVC pipe 20' long on the local Craigslist. Sounds like a good start to me!

Thanks

Blake

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Wow!! 8"?? I just doubled 3" Pvc with fence pipe for strength, (two 3" bolted together looks like an 8 looking at the end) and 3" pvc for each boom.. the doubled 3" let me make it 24' tall and rope ratlines secured it..

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