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Step 12Flying Mechanism
After a couple epic failures with windshield wiper motors and flywheels, I settled on a garage door opener to put the "flying" in my flying saucer. I was daunted by the assembly process at first, but it went together pretty easy. I mounted it on a wood frame with some scrap metal brackets. The pulley wheels came from an old piece of exercise equipment (after finding out the small metal pulleys sold at Home Depot caused too much friction).
My original plan was to have the motor run continuously up and down with the use of some magnetic switches. However, I discovered (to my dismay) that all garage door openers have a thermal sensor inside which easily overheats and switches off after a few cycles. My solution was to use a lighting controller which I had previously purchased online from Monster Guts. The ST-2401 Stereo Lightning Controller (made by iZombie Productions) is a unit which provides power to two separate devices based on two independent audio input signals. It is mainly used to simulate thunder and lightning effects.
I edited a simple Garage Band audio file on my Mac (see screen shot) and assigned one tone (on the left channel) to turn the garage door power source on and off while the other tone (panned to the right) signaled a relay to start the motor running (in essence, it hit the switch). Once the garage door trolley got to the "lowest" position, a screen blocked the infrared safety sensors (which came with the unit) and caused the mechanism to go back "up". Since the controller turns the garage door unit's power off and back on, it resets and becomes ready for another cycle.
This turned out to be a happy accident because the delay in the cycles makes it a really neat event when the ship finally starts to move. (instead of constantly yo yo-ing up and down). The delay is about two minutes between cycles (which kept the motor cool). And since it is an audio controller at heart, it was relatively easy to sync it with sound effects of a descending and ascending ship.
Although I was pressed for time, the entire mechanism turned out to be very reliable and worth the extra money. With 20lbs of counterweight, it was a piece of cake for the garage door opener to move the ship. I really like the fact that this configuration doesn't require any programing or soldering. If you are planning your own build, I'd be happy to save you some time and send you the audio files. Just contact me through instructables and I'll email you an mp3 of the audio tones to control the ST-2401 along with the custom sound effects of the lowering/raising spacecraft to run in sync on your iPod.
Of course, a completely different option would be to use an Arduino as the controller. And to save more money, you could do a few simple modifications to the garage door opener that you probably already have at home. Just bypass the wall button, disconnect the door from the trolley, prop it up with some blocks to make a small opening and run your line underneath with a few more pulleys. You can even use your car's remote to manually activate it. (Kids, be sure to ask your parents before dismantling your house.)
I'm unaware of any other Halloween props that use a garage door opener as the controlling motor, so send me a link if you've seen it done before.
My original plan was to have the motor run continuously up and down with the use of some magnetic switches. However, I discovered (to my dismay) that all garage door openers have a thermal sensor inside which easily overheats and switches off after a few cycles. My solution was to use a lighting controller which I had previously purchased online from Monster Guts. The ST-2401 Stereo Lightning Controller (made by iZombie Productions) is a unit which provides power to two separate devices based on two independent audio input signals. It is mainly used to simulate thunder and lightning effects.
I edited a simple Garage Band audio file on my Mac (see screen shot) and assigned one tone (on the left channel) to turn the garage door power source on and off while the other tone (panned to the right) signaled a relay to start the motor running (in essence, it hit the switch). Once the garage door trolley got to the "lowest" position, a screen blocked the infrared safety sensors (which came with the unit) and caused the mechanism to go back "up". Since the controller turns the garage door unit's power off and back on, it resets and becomes ready for another cycle.
This turned out to be a happy accident because the delay in the cycles makes it a really neat event when the ship finally starts to move. (instead of constantly yo yo-ing up and down). The delay is about two minutes between cycles (which kept the motor cool). And since it is an audio controller at heart, it was relatively easy to sync it with sound effects of a descending and ascending ship.
Although I was pressed for time, the entire mechanism turned out to be very reliable and worth the extra money. With 20lbs of counterweight, it was a piece of cake for the garage door opener to move the ship. I really like the fact that this configuration doesn't require any programing or soldering. If you are planning your own build, I'd be happy to save you some time and send you the audio files. Just contact me through instructables and I'll email you an mp3 of the audio tones to control the ST-2401 along with the custom sound effects of the lowering/raising spacecraft to run in sync on your iPod.
Of course, a completely different option would be to use an Arduino as the controller. And to save more money, you could do a few simple modifications to the garage door opener that you probably already have at home. Just bypass the wall button, disconnect the door from the trolley, prop it up with some blocks to make a small opening and run your line underneath with a few more pulleys. You can even use your car's remote to manually activate it. (Kids, be sure to ask your parents before dismantling your house.)
I'm unaware of any other Halloween props that use a garage door opener as the controlling motor, so send me a link if you've seen it done before.
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