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A photo of the setup as it appeared at night. It was actually darker, but the exposure was set longer to get the details. Small glow in the dark spider rings were hung from yellow string that glowed really well under black light. The ripped cheesecloth and rope webbing was sprayed with Rit liquid whitener. |
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Most of the other stuff was taken down at this point. I decided to get a few pictures before I took it all apart. This is a closer photo of the spiders during the day. The spiders hang from clear flexible tubing similar to that used in fish tanks. When air is applied to each of the lines the spiders "hiss" and flail about. One of the glow in the dark spider rings can be seen hanging from one of the rope webs.
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Not a very good picture, but this is the pack of solenoids that run the spiders. There are 10 solenoids in this pack running off 24VDC. There is a nice control panel, but I found it easier to drive the electrical signal directly. There is one 3/8" air line for supply and 1/4" lines going out to the spiders. The electrical wiring is on the top. I found a plastic enclosure (cover removed) to keep the moisture out. |
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I mounted the solenoid enclosure to the top of this trellis, and covered the whole thing with a camo net from army surplus. I threaded the spider air lines through the netting so that they came out in different locations under the camo net. The spiders were set off when some unsuspecting soul broke the photo eyes attached to the trellis. The photo eyes are hidden by a couple pieces of black landscape fabric. You can see them about a third of the way up from the bottom of the trellis. There is a gray cable running up the side of the trellis that carried the power and signals for the photo eyes and solenoids. |
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Here is a picture of one of the photo eyes. It is lined up with the receiver on the other side of the trellis. The air line for the solenoids is hanging in the background. |
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This is the control center. The cable in the upper left corner runs out to the trellis from the garage. For anyone interested, this is an Allen-Bradly PLC5-15. To the right is the 24VDC power supply needed to operate the solenoids. The input from the photo eyes comes back here and the PLC triggers the spiders to go off. The PLC then waits a given time (long enough for the kids to get their candy and leave) and is then ready for the next person to break the photo eyes. This also controlled the fogger that was hooked to the mutant eggs, and the fogger that was set up the the cemetery. The fogger attached to the eggs was set to go off for a couple seconds when the photo eyes were broken. The fogger in the cemetery was set up just like it was attached to a standard timer, it when off at a timed interval for a set period of time. |
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Here is a short Quicktime video of the spiders in action. (2.5MB)
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