Flying Ghost Projector

I purchased an 'Occasion Image Projector' from Walgreen's for $30. You may have to find this right away, because it was out with the Halloween items which may dissappear soon. This is nice because it has movable optics to project up to a 5ft dia image. It comes with goofy slides that are not very scary. I found an image (above) and printed it onto a transparency sheet and cut to fit.

Flying Ghost Movie 220Kb

As purchased without rotating Mirror

With rotating Mirror

Black PVC pipe with wood dowel and two 2" square mirrors glued to dowl. I used Dremel tool to machine dowl to fit onto motor shaft. Wood cap on opposite end of motor is present to prevent dowl from slipping off motor shaft.

Schematic of Motor/wood dowel/mirror connection.

Schematic of cutting of wood dowel to fit over D shaped shaft of motor.

4.8 RPM timing motor (120VAC) purchased from American Science Surplus. Mounting of motor was kept loose to prevent binding of spinning shaft.

AMERICAN SCIENCE/SURPLUS Motor PN# 30326 for $3.50

This provides a nice speed for the ghost to fly out of the ground. Something in the 3-8 RPM range would work well.

Stray light may diminish the flying ghost effect, so you may want to position this prop in a darker area of your yard.

I redid the 2 mirrors to 4 mirrors to reduce the dead time between ghosts. I had to cut the sides of the 4" tubing connector to let the light out the side.

The projected image escapes outside the side of the 4"tubing as the mirror rotates.

Chris' Halloween F/X Displays