Air driven cylinders - Halloween exhibit

by david Henning
(Wellsburg, IA)

What i am looking for is some information on a air driven extending cylinder in order to make a halloween surprise scene for our community club haunted corn maze for next year.

What i would like to do is mount a frame to a cylinder so that it will pop up from the ground level with a ghoul on the frame to scare people.

It should have the capability of extending about 60", the height of a decent height ghoul. it would be nice to have a valve that would self exhaust the air and return to the ground level for the next scare with a delay of about 5 seconds for the scare. the frame and ghoul would weigh about 40-50 lbs.

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Bill says...

Hey David:

Everything you'll need for this is available from your local compressed air components shop. Check the listings for air cylinder sales outlets in your area.

You need to know how fast you want the ghoul to pop up, and that will dictate how much air and air pressure you need.

What happens when someone is standing on or near this device and it triggers? You need to think hard about the safety issues.

In terms of an auto dump so that the display returns to ground level, that's fairly easy.

Again, what triggers it, and what are you going to do to make sure it doesn't hit someone?

Cheers,

Bill