For the last two years, Jack was a pneumatic prop. He jumped out, made a big banging sound and then retreated — usually before the startled guest spotted him through the smoke. It seemed like he startled – but didn’t really scare.
From a haunt-perspective, not the effect we were hoping for. And from a practical standpoint, if I’m going to use pneumatics, it had better get a payoff in terms of speed or heavy-lifting. Jack didn’t fit that well.
This year, we replaced his mech with a simple wiper motor/bar deployment. The motor is a freightprops wiper motor. The mounting plate for the motor is made from a 1/8″ aluminum plate. The bar is 1/4 x 1 inch aluminum bar. There is a small 2-inch lazy-susan bearing at the joint between the two bars. This helps keep the bars level/separated relative to each other, and reduces some of the load on the motor. It runs very smoothly.
Hooking it up to a 5 amp 3-12v variable power supply, we can adjust the speed for effect. I’ve chosen to run it really slowly and I hear a lot more ‘oohs and ahs’ from the audience.
Another minor tweak was to wire the led eyes directly to the same power as the rest of the prop so we don’t have to replace batteries and/or remember to turn him on and off each night.