I ordered some outdoor flicker lamps from SMARTHOME - X10, Remote Control, Home Automation, Wireless Security, Lighting Control and some of them were defective. In a cranky mood I filled out their post-sales survey, and was contacted promptly by them and they are sending me a new unit. It pays to complain I guess.
Tag Archive for Lighting
Halloween Ideas
- mutli-channel player — sned sounds over individual channels of a 5.1 setup. pretty useful for running multiple sounds off a single pc. Also a random tip on this page — “Want a “dead ringer” for Halloween? Run a string from a grave up to a bell mounted on the tombstone!” — I might try this.
- Another random good tip I read — used rotisserie motors make great prop animators
- Electronic Goldmine for random electronic and control supplies
- What to do with an old CRT?? Make it into the world’s heaviest strobe light of course.
- Article on 4-bar linkage design
- Fittings Depot – for pneuma fittings. Awesome.
- Great article on how to use a Shiatsu massager as the basis of a prop.
- EFX-tek prop controllers.
Halloween Props
- If price is no object — Scarefactory furniture — most of this is a little too gory for my tastes, but great stuff.
- Cloud lamp – nice little project. I think 10 of these little touches can do a lot more for your setup than one big expensive prop.
- Various ideas on how to make flickering light effects from LEDs. Some more LED flicker ideas
- PVCplans — helpful for building structures (mausoleums, etc)
Thanks to methodzofmadness forums where most of these ideas are traded.
Fixing strings of holiday lights
OK not necessarily a Halloween item bu this looks like a great tool to have if it really works — was sold out everywhere this holiday season — The LightKeeper Pro is designed to solve the frequent problems associated with Miniature Light Sets and Bulbs. By simply plugging your light set into the LightKeeper Pro and pressing the Trigger, most problems can be fixed automatically.
Halloween Gear
Latest links culled mostly from the MoM Forum
- Simple Dimmer. Lots of other kits and components here too.
- Simple prop controllers and some nice application notes like this skull idea (zipped pdf)
- I’m sure I’ve blogged this before, the hauntmaster controller — “The Flex ECT is an externally triggered, dual timer that is connected between a sensor (switch) and the electrically operated event device as shown in the diagram to the right”
- Plans to build your own event control timer.
- A range of LED fixtures and drivers. Seems like all halloween lighting should move to LED over time?
- Some hints in here on silencing pneumatic solenoids — the exhaust noise doesn’t really bother me but maybe I will want to do this some day.
- Some very basic intro guides to haunt lighting
- Lighting control units. These look like overkill to me, better for Christmas applications.
Underwater lighting and pumps
From the MOM forums, Mainland Mart — a great source of underwater lighting and pumps.
Halloween bits
- Looping skull – not sure what I’d do with but if I have a spare monitor might be worth running at a window. or maybe i should find a cheap projector…
- Free circuit designs at redcircuits. Some of these may be useful.
- in the money is no object category, fog screens.
Basic Lighting Tutorial
Great little tutorial on halloween lighting — we’ve found that lighting, fog, and sound are the critical elements to mood at our house. Props are the least important element.
Category: Uncategorized /
Tags: Lighting
Kevin Kelly's Review of Reviews
I’ve read Kevin Kelly — Cool Tools regularly and this latest article summarizing and grading review sites is good — I like the lighting related sites. Thanks to Martin for reminding me of this site.
Category: Uncategorized /
Tags: Lighting
EL Wire
A lot of people talking about playing around with EL Wire for halloween effects. Could be fun.
Category: Uncategorized /
Tags: Lighting
EL Lighting
Great stuff for halloween — check out the spider web in one of the sample pictures — Flexible Electroluminescent Lighting
Category: Uncategorized /
Tags: Lighting
Quinine
Well this is news to me. Read on the MOM group today — quinine water or tonic water will glow when exposed to a blacklight! and the diet versions are not sticky. For use in lab setups, etc. A very short explanation here.
Cheap Projection
A goofy but fun lighting idea — Google Search: 100 inch television
Black Light
Black Light Tips — Black light (I need to learn more about UV light and glaucoma before touching this). Strobing blacklight — FrightShop.com: 27″ Blacklight Strobe
Flicker Buttons
Flicker Buttons. Blinker buttons — Electricalwhse.com – Product Details for EAG1008
Improving my Lightning
Tips from the MoM group:
Blue photo floodlights (designed for use with daylight balanced color film) are close to the color of lightning and they also operate at a much higher color temperature than ordinary floodlights. Placing blue theatrical gels over ordinary lamps won’t do as well because the lamps are not very rich in blue to begin with.
I got mine from a little shop that sells only lightbulbs here in town called “Light Bulbs Plus”. One caveat, they don’t last as long as regular floodlights, as they’re designed for quick flashes, not to be left steadily on for any amount of time. This is perfect for lightening effects, however, don’t make the mistake I made last year. During the setup process, the light was left on unintentionally for a while, so I burned through my available bulb life in no time. They also get very hot, so be careful where you place them, just in case they do get left on somehow, (as you see, it happens). Take the proper steps to avoid placing them in a way that could be a potential fire hazard.
We also use the 500W photo flood bulbs for lightning (we sell them as a component in our “Lightning Accessory Kit”). Do be sure to get the daylight balanced or “blue” bulbs versus the tungsten bulbs. They are available at most specialty camera stores, but they are becoming a little more difficult to find. They will typically run $7 – $10 and have a life of between 15 – 60 hours. One other word of advice. As mentioned previously, these bulbs get very hot. So hot in fact that they will melt a standard lamp socket that has a plastic housing (as many of the cheap clamp light fixtures do) if left on for too long. With intermittent use (such as for lightning), they might be OK, but be very careful and do not just leave them turned on. The specialized clamp fixtures that photographers use with these bulbs have a high-temp plastic or a ceramic socket housing (should run $15 – $35). Inexpensive ceramic housings are also readily available at home improvement stores and could be used to build your own fixture.
LED Calculator
Wow a very cool tool to help you calculate simple LED circuits.