diy electronic techno blinky flashy electromechanicalish sometimes artsy projects from my workbench…
If you are looking for information on purchasing or making your own animatronic skull I have a page with information that you can find here:
There are a few sites that sell completed animatronic skulls but they are pretty expensive. I also have a collection of links for DIY animatronic skulls (and birds) along with a few sources of general DIY animatronic related information.
If you are playing with addressable RGB LEDs then you know there is a daunting array of pixel types, controller types, protocols, etc. that can get very confusing. Someone (and I can`t seem to confirm who) maintains a Google Sheet that is a wealth of such information. Called the Awesome LED List you can find it here:
If the link above doesn’t work (it seems to be down right now 10/26/2022) you can also find it here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10pHG7_VIVltyqJK1Y0T5g3Iq6YJV2MnhMp3UcAVB-GA
And in the event it disappears (right now 2 of the 3 links listed in the document no longer work) I have a local version (dated Oct 26, 2022) that you can download:
Addressable LED Controllers, Drivers, and Related Products & Projects_10_26_2022
I don’t think there is a better resource of addressable pixel type LED information anywhere…
On a much smaller scale I do have a small presentation on using addressable LEDs that you can find here:
You might find it helpful also..
I live near a busy harbour and wanted some dynamic data for my NMEA2000 testing. A DIY AIS receiver seemed like a ideal plan and I had most of the parts in my spare parts pile. Found a site that had a prebuilt Raspberry Pi image and I also found a quick and very cheap way to make your own antennas out of coax and PVC tubing. Mounted it all in a box outside and was soon seeing real-time marine traffic. See this page for all the details: AIS Receiver
My brother in-law bought a sailboat and was having some issues with the mast mounted wind sensor. Not only was it hard to access (it’s over 60 feet high) but the boat uses the NMEA2000 data bus to connect all the instruments. A further complication is that it uses the SIMRAD SIMNET network cabling. I did some research and found a way to make a very cost effective DIY adapter to allow you see the NMEA2000 traffic in real-time using very good free software. Check out my NMEA2000 Testing & Troubleshooting page
There don’t seem to be many DIY animatronic web sites around but there are a few pretty active Facebook sites. All of them are private, to help keep down the spam, so you have to request access. These groups are well worth it to find DIY animatronic info:
DIY Animatronics Group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/891805981203854/
Animatronic Builders – https://www.facebook.com/groups/747161395755561/
DIY Halloween Animatronics – https://www.facebook.com/groups/DIYHalloweenAnimatronics/
THE ANIMATRONIC FORUM – https://www.facebook.com/groups/215520962797038/
There are a few options for DIY stand alone controllers that can synchronize audio with servo control (that I am aware of). None of these are off the shelf easy to use but are free and open sourced…
1) Falcon Player – If you create your sequence in Vixen or xLights (both are Xmas lighting sequencing software) you can export the file and run it on a Raspberry Pi running Falcon Player (FPP). This will give you a stand alone controller. If you already have sequences created in VSA you can import them into xLights and then export into a file that Falcon Player can use. FPP/Vixen/xLights are very well supported for lighting control but not so much for animatronics.
2) Lightman’s Servo Controller – This is a Parallax Propeller based 8 channel servo controller. Once you have you audio file loaded you sequence the servo movements via attached pots in realtime in a record mode. You can then play the various sequences syncronized with the audio.
3) Bechele2 – This is a Raspberry Pi based 16 channel servo controller. Again it has a record mode to get the servo motion from an attached joystick and then you can use a player mode to play your sequences with the audio.
I have more information about these and other animatronic controllers on my Animatronic Control page: Animatronic Control Systems
A typical hobby animatronic uses servos. So naturally your control system may only have the ability to control the typical RC servo PWM signal. But what if you have other things like LEDs or motors or…. Or perhaps some pixels. I needed to control some relays from a servo signal and while I know you can purchase such things, I rolled my own with parts that I had on hand. 
I used a Arduino NANO clone and a 2 relay module. This lets me control each relay separately using two of the servo control channels. I used a carrier board for my build but you could make yours a lot smaller if you just solder the wires directly to the NANO and cover it with heat shrink. The circuit is power from the +5V servo power.
While I was working on this I also had the need for controlling some eye LEDs. I wanted to have adjustable colors for these LEDs so I could have used some RGB LEDs but this would have taken 3 control channels (one for each of the 3 colors) and would require some sort of driver for multiple LEDs. Then I thought about using addressable LEDs, a NeoPixel ring was ideal for lighting up the project that I was dealing with. And it would only need 2 control channels.
I again used a NANO and cobbled some code together that lets one servo channel control the brightness and another channel to control the LED color color (all LEDs show the same color). Again I didn`t need to worry about size and it is powered from the +5V servo power.
For more information including wiring diagrams and the Arduino code go to my Servo Project page.
I’m quite interested in animatronic control, it’s a nice mix of electronics, mechanics and software. But for a hobbyist there are not many inexpensive options for controlling them. There are commercial programs like VSA (Visual Show Automation) but not many other choices. I have a page that lists different ways that I am aware of for making your prop move and talk… You can find it here.
Things have been quiet lately but I did start a page for various pixel based LED art (well, artistic to me anyways) projects I have done lately. Because you can never have enough LEDs…
Check it out here..
I finally decided to replace my finicky home made usually not working Prusa i3 with an Ender 3 V2 and could not be happier (especially since the Prusa hasn’t been functional for a few years!!). It pretty much prints perfectly out of the box.
I have been wanting to make some more animatronic skulls and the Lindberg Skull models are no longer made so there are no cheap alternatives. One of the users on the Xmas lighting sites posted a version he designed on Thingiverse:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3803762
So far I have just printed the skull top and it worked out fine.
We will see how the rest goes……
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