Halloween Pneumatics Prop DIY - Building a Manually Operated Halloween Prop (Part 2 of 4)

In this video I plan to show you how to take a pneumatic air cylinder, a manual control valve like this joy stick or this foot pedal, a few fittings and tubing and add your own scary head, creature or device and add it to your prop collection. I selected the largest spring returned air cylinder that we carry here at AutomationDirect. Its PN is: A12060SP this one only requires air to be applied to one side of the cylinder, when the air pressure is released, the cylinder returns back to its original position. I am using a registered remake prop that I bought years ago to put on the end of the air cylinder. If you notice… most ALL air cylinders will be threaded on the end so, it’s up to you how your creature is connected. Next, I want to plumb the air from my joystick to the air cylinder. As you can see on this joystick, it has 5 openings or ports. They are labeled: A, B, R, P and S. A and B are our feed out, P is our supply in while R and S are our exhaust ports out. We only need one supply and one exhaust. If we don’t plumb it correctly, the air will fill the cylinder and hold pressure, so we need to make sure when the joystick returns home, that the pressure is released or exhausted. On the exhaust ports, you should use a silencer like this one to reduce the noise and keep contaminants out of the valve. It is suggested to use a silencer on the exhaust ports and to plug all of the unused ports. This will keep dirt and trash out and insure your equipment will last for a long time. As far as fittings and tubing, you will need to check the thread sizes on the air cylinder and the control valve or valves you selected and match them. There are several options on the hose size, but I chose to use ? inch since it is pretty standard. I simply install all the fittings in the correct ports, cut my tubing to the desired length and connect them all. As you can see, the fitting I used on the cylinder side is different than the fitting on the control valve. Here I have an adjustable fitting that allows for control of air flow at the cylinder itself. This allows more control of the extend and retract speeds. Now I just need to plumb an air supply. Here we are using a small air compressor that we purchased at a home supply store. These can be found for as little as $50 if you shop around. I only want to use enough air pressure to move the cylinder out in a rapid but not too fast of a motion. If you use too much air pressure, you will prematurely wear out your parts. OK, so I am set, and as you can see, it is all plumbed and sort of set up as a temporary prop. Now, if you can imagine this head popping out of a wall or a fake body cavity, the person controlling it can be isolated and hidden with this joystick. So, it will work like this…. All of the products we have used in this system are products that AutomationDirect sells with the exception of our air compressor, so keep us in mind for all of your automation needs. Thanks for watching and I hope you follow me through the next 2 videos to see how this prop progresses to a fully automated system.