That exact gimmick is a 'how-to' in this month's issue of "Nuts and Volts" magazine.

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Creationists have a world of evidence

 

Aw you have all that gadgetry and you can't come up with something scarier than a spider? I would just use a real spider

...and paint it with poisonous colours

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Good riddance, ETO .

 

I would then one up you and get a poisonous spider and dress it up as a clown! Nothing is scarier than a clown spider!


***Awaits tomorrows results***

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Mike
My website: www.ElectroBird.net

 

Thanks for keeping the thread alive guys.

It's getting close, 3pm Monday here as I type this. I'll put the parcels in tomorrow's mail (prob 24 hours from now) so please PM me ASAP with your mailing addresses so I have the addresses ready to rock (since I'm on Australia time).

 

Ouch... instead of squirting water from its nose, it would squirt lion urine! Rich in fear-pheromones!

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Good riddance, ETO .

 

I'm going to go ahead and assume you PM'ed those that you chose!

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Mike
My website: www.ElectroBird.net

 

OK, the winners are;

Birdman - please PM me your address
Gaspode - have address
Mike2545 - please PM me your address
Allvol - have address
Giftiger - please PM me your address
Wombweller - please PM me your address

Special mention;

Blueroom - ill send you - have your address
3v0 - ill send you - have your address

mohd.S.H - you DO NOT get one - thanksssssssss

So please PM me with your mailing addresses if you have not done so already. It's a few more units than i expected so I'll need to solder up some more serial leads, should be ready by tomorrow.

Also! If anyone does NOT want the standard Slave1 PIC firmware installed, please choose a different firmware from this list (and make it snappy);
TalkBotBrain.com Source Files

I suggest you consider Slave4 that will play 4 sounds controlled by 4 switches, or maybe Slave6 that will randomly choose any one of the sounds when a single switch is pressed.

Of course anyone who can program ICSP the PIC 16F628 and can understand my C source code can modify the source code to suit, or you can just control it by serial 19200 baud. Anway please let me know!

 

I'd really like to do something big next year. It's too late for me this year. I started looking at pneumatics, but solenoids and actuators are so expensive. I have plenty of hobby servo's, but they aren't really strong/fast enough for larger animatronics.

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Mark Higgins

 

What sort of scale are you planning?

I have no experience with this sort of thing but I'm looking forward to seeing what I can achieve with this module kindly being provided by Mr RB. My friend and I recently had the idea of using my RabbitCore microprocessor (bit of an obscure one) to control a robotic arm, but after finally getting all the circuitry worked out it appears it'll take a while for me to have sufficient skill to produce a working PCB for the design. By that time I will probably have improved the arm's mechanics though I've never used servo motors before but it seems they will be much more suitable for that application than the standard motors provided by the manufacturers.

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Good riddance, ETO .

 

Thanks for sharing RB, i'm looking forward to see what the recipients come up with. I think a IR beam (think garage door) that gets broken when someone gets close, that triggers the pumpkin, sounds, lights, co2 etc.

Would be cool to automate an effect like this

YouTube - Thanksgiving Turkey Stomach Burst : BFX : Build

 

I liked the jerking zombie's, and trash can jumpers kinda things. One used a homemade pneumatic actuator out of PVC pipe, which looked pretty good. Still need the solenoid, though.

I really liked the 'ground breaker'. I'll have to find it.
This is it:
YouTube - Pneumatic Ground Breaker How-To

Otherwise I think I'm going to need to cannibalize drill motors and such to get anything with a decent size moving.

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Mark Higgins

 

I have a rather meaty motor courtesy of Hero (hopefully he'll be back soon). I think it's about a 24V motor. I was planning on trying to build a wind turbine power source out of it as an experiment, but I'm still looking for new ideas Main problem I've had with that idea is producing some fairly large light-weight beams to catch the wind, and fitting them securely on the motor. I'd probably need to remove the worm first, but I don't know how I would do that, it's pretty securely attached. Not sure if it's just pressed on and a very tight fit (in which case I'd probably need a very powerful specialist tool to remove it), or if it's actually welded to the axle (in which case I'm totally screwed). Seems to be the former though, at least. Could be a third option. I'll stop waffling now.

I've never used actuators, though I'd happily tinker with them if I could get my hand on some cheap ones. I can't think of many appliances which might contain actuators, so unless I think of a good enough use of them to warrant actually buying some, it's probably not going to happen anytime soon. And certainly not the sort of scale you're planning

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Good riddance, ETO .

 

Thanks guys! But's there's still a couple of people who need to PM me their mailing addresses.

Giftiger, if you wanted to try moving RC servos (ie animatronics) using the TalkBot it's very easy, you just send it a 2-byte serial command; containing 3 bits tell which of the 8 servos to move, and a 12bit number which is the position to move to, (5000 = full left, 7500 = middle, 10000 = full right). And obviously you can pick any position in between.

 

This might help people out somehow:
Scary Sound Effects for Halloween
Enjoy

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Mike
My website: www.ElectroBird.net

 

Maybe I'll try the "boo" sound I'll consider it a success if I can make my niece jump, anyway. I probably won't get chance to do anything elaborate and real-looking, but it'd be neat to set up a mini surround-sound in the hallway and have the sound come from all directions at once

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Good riddance, ETO .