Unpleasant Projects

I spent some time before putting everything away fixing the issue with the Monster-in-the-Box.  If you recall from the last blog entry, I had problems with it on Halloween.  It was a very easy fix… a new nut and locking washer were all I needed to fix it.  I re-attached the forked mounting bracket to the cylinder, tightened up the new nut and lock washer to it and then pinned it to the lid.  Done.  Fixed.  Get it out of my way!!!

The other problem that had plagued me on Halloween was the malfunctioning 3-axis skull.  This was another easy fix and a real “head slapper” when I figured out the problem.  At some point, the 6v, 3A power supply got accidentally switched to a 12V, 1A supply.  I’m shocked that I didn’t burn out the motors by pumping 12V into them.  I guess the insufficient current probably saved me there.  A quick swap back to the correct power supply and everything is A-OK again.

Next I need to tackle the mp3 player issues and note what went wrong there so I can avoid that problem next year.

Until next time, stay scary folks!

Aftermath.  That might not be the best word to use for a title for my post-Halloween 2011 wrap-up.  Given the various problems I had on Halloween night, maybe it is.

I’ll start with the bad things.  I think I’m the only one that noticed any of this, but it still bugged me all night as I had a certain vision for the event and these things were the nagging problems that prevented my ultimate vision from being realized.

The 3-axis skull did NOT work right.  It was having trouble holding its head up and eventually stopped working except for the mouth movement and eye blinks.  Thankfully, it was the same routine as last year and most people just breezed by it.

Next up, the Monster in the Box stopped working right after about an hour.  At some point, the coupling that holds the cylinder to the lid came off and the lid no longer opened.

My new posable static figure was having issues.  Namely, the fully clothed figure was not able to support the full weight and resulted in the figure constantly bending at the knees and falling over.  I hated to do it, but I wound up just screwing the knees in place so it would stop falling over.

Lastly, THREE of my mp3 players for background music and sound effects – despite having worked properly earlier that day – showed as having no mp3 files on them.  The Vortex tunnel, pallet shack, and flying crank ghost had no music/sound effects thanks to this problem.

Things could have been much worse, so I’m thankful the event still happened in a way that still allowed people to have fun.

Now to finish on a positive note, here is all that went right!

We had another great year in terms of turnout.  We didn’t run out of treat bags (200 total packed) but so many people left the haunt without taking one we have no idea how many actually came through.

All the comments were great!  The haunted trail in the woods wound up being a bigger success than any of our past ventures simply by adding the inherent creepiness of the forest to the mix.  It’s a safe bet we’ll be doing the trail out there again, probably building on what we did this year.

This was also our tenth year!  One of our patrons was aware of it and gave my wife a bouquet of dead flowers to mark the occasion.  A very nice gesture. 

Rounding out the positive side of things is the fantastic amount of help we got from friends and family this year.  Our crew consisted of myself, my wife Aprille, brother Matt, Aprille’s cousin Laura, Laura’s boyfriend Chris, our friend Joe, and my friends from work Sara, Mark and Vivek.  Without all of their help, we would have never been able to pull it all off.

All in all, not a perfect year but still immensely fun nonetheless.  I’m already starting to plot next year’s new additions. 

Setup is moving right along for the 2011 incarnation of Unpleasant Street.  Dare I say, I’m even on schedule!  Gasp!

I have a vast majority of the non-weather sensitive props set up including most of the trail out back.  The graveyard out front is set up.  There’s just 18 days left and I feel pretty good about where I’m at.

I have a few friends coming by to help finish things off on Saturday so that should further expedite things.

Our Halloween party is the 22nd and then it’s a 9 day march forward to the big night.  I can hardly wait!

For some reason, I always think I can improve something.  Then I get the idea that I can do so quickly and without incident.  As usual, I was wrong.

A month ago, I built Denny Stanley (denhaunt, AKA Denny from HauntCast) a replica of the deer head I made for myself a few years ago.  I improved on the design for his by using an mp3 board (instead of EFX-TEK’s shitty AP-8), and built a custom controller using a Picaxe 14m2 and some power MOSFETS (instead of the Prop-1 and relays used on mine).

Denny’s turned out excellent and I shipped it off to him to make him a happy camper (I’m getting a pumpkin thief for the trouble).

So, I got to thinking “Why not ‘improve’ mine with the same Picaxe/MOSFET configuration?”

I built a board up with the Picaxe and MOSFETs.  I decided to just keep the (shitty) AP-8 in there since it’s expensive and I have no other use for it.

I think in doing this, I made the prop WORSE.  I’ve run into a problem where the program runs correctly sometimes but not all the time.

For example, it always plays a sound on cue.  It also always has animations that accompany the sounds.  However, sometimes the animation doesn’t match the sound playing.  Sometimes, the animation isn’t even one I programmed it to play.

Take out the Picaxe board and put the Prop-1 back in… everything’s fine.

My code is fine (my simulations all run properly)… the circuit is fine (identical to Denny’s) the only difference is the effing EFX-TEK AP-8.  For some reason, the AP-8 seems to be the item that makes everything go haywire.

So, I’ve gone and just put the Prop-1 back in.  I’ll save my Picaxe board for some other project that can use it.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  Even if your OCD tells you that you can build it better.

So, in my absence here I have concocted a plan for this year’s haunt.  I’m putting it in the woods!

Not much is going to change save for it’s move to the woods.  I have added a well to the trail so an actor of mine can hide in it and emerge to terrify the trick or treaters.

The cemetery will remain out in front of the house and the torture scene and organist scene will remain as they were from last year.

I do have a few props I’d like to get built if I have enough time and the weather cooperates.  First up is a new static figure.  I have the mask and clothes for him as well as the means to make a pair of hands for him so I may as well jump on that and get it done.

Secondly is another spider webbed victim for the trail.  I’ve put that off for a while so it’s high time I just build it.

That’s my thoughts for new stuff this year.  I’ll post an update of what’s already done later on this week.  Have a scary night!

Yeah, I know that title has been overly abused ever since Poltergeist 2 came out, but I don’t care.  I still used it.

Anyhow, I have been away from this site for quite some time.  I haven’t given up haunting or anything like that… I’ve just been busy and the admin panel has been broken for a while (and I needed to get off my lazy ass and fix it).

Where to begin?

I’ll start with some great news.  I’m presently one of about sixteen haunters in the running to be in a documentary about home haunters titled “Homemade House of Horrors.”  Back in August, I had applied to be considered for the project.  A few weeks later I was contacted and informed that out of the three hundred plus entries, I was one of the ones that piqued their interest.  Go me!

The crew behind the film, Magic Stone Productions (Michael Stephenson, Zack Carlson, and Katie Graham) came to our house yesterday to talk.  We discussed things like what I do at Unpleasant Street, what inspired me to become a home haunter, what plans I have for this year and even just chatted about movies and such for a while.  I also gave them a tour of what was set up at the moment and then when they were ready to go, sent them away with some HauntForum DVDs to have a look at.

All in all, I have a good feeling from them.  They were really nice and seem to have a real passion for the project they’ve undertaken.  Even if I don’t make the cut, I’m excited about the film as it will no doubt be featuring some really great haunters.

Admittedly, it would be pretty sweet if the East Coast Haunt Club members (Myself, Vic of Ghoulie Manor, and Chris of Village Mire) dominated the movie.  Go ECHC! 

That’s it for this time.  I’ll give a haunt update tomorrow or later in the week.  Lots to tell on that front.

As often happens during this time of year, there has been a huge lapse between my last blog post and this one.  This is mainly due to being far too busy to take the time to keep up with it.

The haunt is 95% set up now.  I only have a few things left to do to be ready for Halloween… mainly the 3-axis skull’s routine and setting up all the miscellaneous electronic items that can’t endure the outdoors.

I had to scrap two props due to time constraints.  The weekend I had planned to build the crypt and new spider-webbed victim a tree crushed a portion of my cemetery fence forcing me to spend time building a new section to replace the broken one.  It was a real heartbreaker to witness, but in the grand scheme of things the damage could have been a lot worse.

Here is where I stand in terms of the projects I had hoped to complete this year.  Crossed off projects denote a project I successfully finished.

Spider Scene:

• Finish Spider Egg Sacs
• Build one new webbed up victim (time permitting… scrapped until next year)
• Build a mini FCG rig for dangling spiders

Torture Scene:

• Build a Rack
• Build a Wheel
• Build a Chair
• Build Stocks
• Work on 3-axis skull animation
  

Misc Stuff:

• Repair the Skeletal Organist’s mechanism (October)
• Assess older props and repair as needed
• Build a small crypt to hide fog chiller (scrapped until next year)

I have no idea if I’ll find the time for another update between now and Halloween.  In the event I don’t squeeze another update in (and you happen to be reading this blog) have a happy and safe Halloween!

Things are moving right along here at Unpleasant Street.  I had some tasks that I hoped to accomplish over the weekend and I managed to get more done than I set out to.

For starters, the graveyard is well underway.  The fencing is all up and all of the tombstones are staked to the ground.  The crypt facade is also up.  All that remains to be done is setting up the smaller props here and there and getting the scene lit.

Secondly, the backyard pathway is pretty much done.  All the fencing and posts have been set up, the pallet shack is done and the vortex tunnel is built.  I didn’t have enough fence pieces for the expanded pathway this year so I’m going to use rope to finish off the areas where the path is incomplete.

The rack also got a coat of stain so that is now totally done.  The whole torture scene is ready for it’s denizens to be moved in. 

I didn’t get the windows boarded up, but that’s a task that takes about an hour to do, so I’m not too worried about it.

It’s raining most of this week so I’m going to work on the 3-Axis skull’s routine in VSA and see if I can’t have that knocked out by week’s end.

With this being the last weekend of September I’m hoping to get a lot done.  I want to get the cemetery fencing set up and set up the pathway in the back yard for the ToTs to follow.  It would also be nice if I get the windows boarded up too.

Yesterday I managed to get the crypt facade set up.  As usual, I had to repair some minor mouse/bird damage from over the past year.  I take such a lazy approach to this by simply gluing some moss I bought from Michael’s over the exposed blue foam.  I’m probably going to glue some vines I bought at this year’s Haunt Club Gathering on the face of the walls to embellish it further.

In other developments…

The motor I had set aside for the dangling spider rig is waaaay too fast!  I hadn’t tested it out and in order to get the motor to spin at a good, slow speed, I have to reduce the voltage to it down to 1.5 VDC (which doesn’t offer much torque at that voltage) or buy an expensive Pulse-width modulator to control it.  Instead, I found some good, cheap outdoor motors that have a slow RPM and a fair amount of torque.  Thanks to Homeydaclown from HauntForum for the link to those!  Hopefully I can get this project back on track and get it done.  Time’s a runnin out!

I didn’t get a hell of a lot done yesterday.  I got to work late so I had to leave later than usual giving me less time to work outside before dark.

I did manage to get all the black plastic stapled to the inside of the vortex tunnel and give it a try.  I found filling the room with fog is a bad idea because the laser can’t cut through very thick fog well.  Lots of short bursts over longer intervals of time seemed to work best.

In the process of setting up and making adjustments I managed to break a wire in the vortex generator (love that term).  A quick re-solder job later and it’s back in action.  This project is now done!