The Mad Lab

In 2010 I did a FCG with Flaming Skull for my cemeteryHalloween display. When I built my FCG one of the criteria I needed was theability to have a free standing unit that I could display in my yard and wasn’ttop-heavy and didn’t have three or four legs. After fooling around for a fewweeks I was not happy with the function of the FCG. When the skull was beingraised you could see that the motor was laboring to raise it even though I had addeda counter weight to the skull as in the original Doug Fergusion how-to. Afterthe season I looked at my setup to get a better movement. In the end I had tomove the counter weight connection to the washer opposite the, it made for aclumsy set up. After ponder how to get around these limitations it dawned on methat if I used gears I could possible do away with the counter weight and Iwould be able to change the movement of the head and arms over the repetitivemovement of the original FCG. After some searching on the web I came acrossthis site for wooden gears: http://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/template.html.Using the program I designed four gears with 7, 32, 31 and 29 gears for themain drive gear, the gear for the head and the gears for the arms. I then cutout the gears using the following tutorial from the site I found the geartemplate generator on: http://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/plywood_gears.html.I started with a motor I had on hand a transfer case shift motor, which is basically a windshield wiper motor used for a different purpose.

Since I wanted to place the FGG in my grave yard I had tomake the rig that was free standing. Using 1 ½ inch PVC pipe and variousfittings the rig was made such that the motor and gears were at the bottom andthe lines for the marionette were strung through the PVC pipe. Here are theparts of the rig laid out ready to be put together.

I cut the wires from the encoder and removed the stop sothat it would rotate 180°. And placed it in the base of my FGG rig.

I installed the main drive gear in to the motor and base.

Then I installed the gears for the head and arms.

Next comes the lower riser this is a coupler, http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?partNumber=23281-1814-PVC+00100++0800&langId=-1&storeId=10151&productId=1235923&catalogId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=nofollow&cId=PDIO1, a sanitary tee, http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?partNumber=23394-1814-PVC+00400++0800&langId=-1&storeId=10151&productId=3132813&catalogId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=nofollow&cId=PDIO1and some PVC pipe.

The next piece is the main riser which is composed of two 1½ inch PVC double wyes http://www.lowes.com/pd_53616-1814-PVC+00611++0600_0__?productId=3358806&Ntt=pvc+dmv+double+wye&pl=1&currentURL=%2Fpl__0__s%3FNtt%3Dpvc%2Bdmv%2Bdouble%2Bwye&facetInfo=and a piece of PVC pipe.

Then I attach the guide wire to the main riser and the basefor rigidity, and the lower arm guides.

Next comes the head riser and guide which is an elbow, http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?partNumber=23352-1814-PVC+00300++0800&langId=-1&storeId=10151&productId=3132773&catalogId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=nofollow&cId=PDIO1a street elbow, http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?partNumber=23341-1814-PVC+00323++0800&langId=-1&storeId=10151&productId=3132759&catalogId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=nofollow&cId=PDIO1and two pieces of PVC pipe.

The arm risers and guides are then installed in the next twopictures are the risers and with them installed.

Finally the marionette is hung and the lines attached to thegears.

With the 7:32 gear ration and the max speed ofthe motor the RPM is just under 6, using my PWM controller I can get the RPMsdown to just over 3.

GOOD JOB! I think it looks great! Keep up the goul work!:D

Ingenious design!