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Published on 3 Comments on My Griswold light show!

As promised, here are some pics and a small video of my light show.

The controller for the lightshow is from solsticewerks.com.  It is a 16 channel controller, but I blew out a couple of channels so they stay lit all the time.  Here is a pic.

 

The light controller is in the center and it feeds all the light plugs.  The sockets are just screwed onto a 2X8 board and is set into a rubbermaid tub.  This worked pretty well in the rain.  I cut slits in the side of the tub to run the wires.  No water got into the tub whatsoever.

I also built a FM transmitter to play the song to car radios.  I made a sign.

 

The transmitter I used was a ramsey FM 10C http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bin/commerce.exe?preadd=action&key=FM10C

It is a nice kit.  I would recommend it for this application.

 

 The software I used is Vixen.  http://www.vixenlights.com/

Now I need to get more songs to play.

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Published on 1 Comment on Candy Launching Pumpkin

 

After the popularity of Butterscotch I seem to have got a reputation for adding fire to things (even though it was FireTim that did the pyro half of Butterscotch).  So when the Mythbusters posted a link to a fire breathing pumpkin I was bombarded with questions about when I would be building one.  Not being the type to do what others expect me to do I rejected the idea of doing a pyro pumpkin outright.

 

Though I was set on not building a fire breathing pumpkin it did make me think about building other things inside of a pumpkin.   Then it hit me just two days before Halloween. I needed to build a pumpkin that would forcefully deliver candy to Trick-or-Treaters much in the same way they would deliver eggs to my house if I did not provide candy to them.  From that point on I had a mission. Throwing sleep and other responsibilities to the wind I went to the bowels of the LVL1 bone yard to hack together a candy launching pumpkin.

 

After design concessions due to time and help from fellow LVL1ers (thanks FireTim and Jon the Kilted) I was able to defend my house this year.  Although I never saw the pumpkin Mythbusters link and I am sure it is cool I considered this a spite project similar to JAC 101 Micro-Laser Cutter.  I just hope everyone enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it.

 

I have posted an instructable for this project to help others defend themselves next All Hallows' Eve… but really, why wait.  Go to that instructable and start defending yourself for Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, or Christmas.  There is nothing like a fruitcake chucking Santa to keep those damn carolers at bay.

Published on Leave a comment on Lil Ghostbuster costume

 

LVL1 community member Tim G. and his wife created this great ghostbusters costume for their son Harper.

I have attached the schematic for the proton pack lights.  I used a 6V lantern battery as part of the pack so I didn't need a voltage regulator.  The flashlight has a separate 9V battery located in the gun and 6 white LEDs.

I used these plans for the pack:  http://www.gbfans.com/equipment/plans/norm-gagnon/ although many parts had to be swapped out for similar items that were half the size.
The main structure of the pack is made from black coroplast since I had some on hand.  In fact I made the whole pack aside from the straps using items I had lying around.  For sounds I mounted a small mp3 player on the gun and used the 6V battery to power a set of USB powered PC speakers.