Oszlar

Ok so there are a lot of you that have been asking about Oszlar so here is a start at trying to detail things a bit. In the following I will try to break down things into sections that make sense (at least to me), and get them into some sort of logical order. Along the way I'll be tossing in some notes to consider as you go

Please Note all pictures and more are available on our website HauntedAcreWoods.com
Feel free to share this but please give us credit as this is copyleft material... Thank you

I will try to cover (as time allows):

• Enclosure, materials and construction
• Finishing and sealing aka weather proofing
• Stained Glass element
• Electrical
• Overview of the Electro/Mechanical Components
• Before we really began, we wanted a name, and style that was different from anything that would get us into potential copyright infringemnet territory, as well as to differentiate our project from just about everything else out there.

What is in a Name

OK so thinking about Zolar from the movie "Big" we made a couple observations, and seeing it is a fortune teller we looked into the history . We looked at a lot of names gypsy and slavic till we came upon Oszlar and decided that that would be a good name. There is not particular meaning associated with this name, and at the time I had no particular expectations on what I was about to build

Getting a style

This sounds sooo simple but it ties the whole theme of the unit together. We decided on a FONT to use for all the lettering, fortune cards etc... a logo if you will that becomes the Oszlar signature

Basic Enclosure Construction

Of course we all learn from our mistakes, and I made a pretty major one, that is the overall enclosure dimensions (finished) were about 4" too wide to fit through a regular doorway :( Fortunately the sliders off our deck are wide enough, and Oszlar winters in our sun room :)

The unit is constructed around 2ea 4 foot cubes, They stack and interlock (with only 2 sc rews holding the top and botton together). The roof is from an old cupola we had over aour garage that has a copper clad roof. Since we had reshingled the roof, and the cupola was in marginal shape, we decided to recycle it into various props, using the roof for Oszlar.

I'm cheap (ok frugal) and the frame is made from 2x2's (yes ripped 2x4's thus doubling my available stock) and the paneling is well luan (or floor underlayment) ALL the trim is made from standard 1x3 strapping (I always buy about 4-8 bundles fron the lumbar yard, and they really are inexpensive <$1 for 8 footers thus a bundle of 10 is pretty inexpensive <$10 ) The floor underlayment too is inexpensive for 1/8" thick sheets again in about the same price range. and one piece fo 1/2" plywood (B-C) and only needed a half sheet for the top of the base. And another sheet of 3/8 C-C for the doors on the back. I also found some casters at the local 'Job Lot' (overstock discount store) for about $2 ea .... so far the budget is pretty fair

Here is me doing an intial staining on the upper frame
Note the side facing the camera is the front, already trimmed out with strapping to hold the plexiglass panels, sides too!

All the sections stack and have a fairly snug fit to the one beneth it. The base has a ledge that is slightly slanted out and down ( to keep rain draining away from the unit), a drip ledge if you will. The top The roof section similarly fits over the top of the top section ...

The Plexiglass fits in channels on the 3 sides ot the top section, The top trim piece is screwed in place, and removing it will expose the slot where the plexiglass slides in place. BTW the 44 x 46 in pieces of plexiglass were the single most expensive part of the enclosure ( like $30 ea !!).

The rear of the unit has 2 hinged doors on the top and botton sections with simple wingnut style latches to keep them closed these are painted ( outdoor paint ) black and on the inside a flat black coat was added for a neutral background. The top of the base (inside the windowed cube) was also painted flat black (Oszlars table)

Finishing and weatherproofing

So as I was building the sections above I was also busy staining anything that would be exposed to the outside. I uses standard minwax stain and did the blot on wipe off to get the tones pretty consistent.
Once the sections were assembled and had their base color stain put on I then poly'd the whole shebang.

The final setp was running the caulking gun around all the edges ( that face up or sideways, not so much on protected edges, like under the rain ledge) I used Brown silicon caulking on the stained surfaces and clear around the glass (the was installed later)

Stained Glass class

This was a fun (and somewhat relaxing) part for me, a couple nights with some big paper to make a template on and the handy craft store faux stained glass window painting kit. (leftovers from a honeydo project ).
I had taken a permanent marker and outlined the structure of the frame while it was in place on the frame before I started. This showed me where not to paint, and where the Tale Fortune lights would go.
Here is the near finished plexi, please note that I did everything on what would be the inside of the glass (thus protected from the elements) adding edge embelishments in black to blot out anything and give it a nice framed look

Electrical

I believe in low voltage lighting a lot ! Its flexible, and easy to wire up.
I also believe in using connectors on most everything, Molex makes a ton of very inexpensive connectors that fit the bill and car crimp on. Crimp the pins then put in the housing ... On this project I used the 4 pin variety ( I have a stash of these and usually buy them 50 (each type) at a time, I use them all around the haunt for LV ). see Digikey catalog page Molex/Waldom pn 03-09-1041 and 03-09-2042 ( < .50 ea ) and dont forget to get PINS to insert too

+----------\
| G 5 12 12 >
+----------/

Connection reference:

• G (black) - 5 (red) = 5vdc
• G (black) - 12(yellow) = 12vdc (2 circuits available, generally second is power and 1st is controled (switched)
• 12 - 12 (zip cord usually black) = 12vac
• Wiring... well everything is wired back to the panel in the bottom section, with of course connectors allowing the sections to be unplugged/seperated. I am a bit particular about wiring (I've done a lot over the years) and insist on it being very neat, and traceable (incase there is a problem) Color coded and the like.

Lights

So LV lighting what do I use, well pretty much anything you can use in a car truck van or boat, is fair game (12 Volt) Wal-Mart is your friend on this one most are under $2. Somewhere along the line I also had a couple of clip on worklights for like RVing these make a real nice spotlight (which is in the roof above Oszlar, giving nice illumination) Another Advantage of the LV lighting is that you don't need to run the lights at 12v, as a matter of fact when Oszlar is in running mode the lights dim (about 5V) giving you more dynamics in the ambiance ....

Of course Oszlar has LED eyes adding a 1k ohm resistor make them run off 12vdc without burning out
And the Crystal Ball has some LEDS around its base too (will be changing them out for brighter ones this yr) that makes the fog glow nicely (just way too dim with std leds)

Indicators

The Take Fortune lights are marker lights from the local Wal-Mart without their bezsles mounted in the triangular sections at the top of the frame. I had some fairly heavy plastic that I cut to the size of the triangles ( with about an inch more all around) painted what would be the inside of the enclosure black and the inside of the 'lights' silver.
Additional amber Panel lights (from All Electronics <$.50 ea ) are placed around the card exit slot.

Relay Bank ... clickety clack

Yup used old fashion fairly beefy relays on this one, because I wanted the sound of the relays to simulate the older units...
In a previous lifetime I was an EE for a local firm, and had some leftover prototype interface and relay boards I used. for others I would suggest a Weeder Relay board that can be controlled thru the computers rs-232 port.

Mechanical

Crystal ball evacuation

The crystal ball has an evacuator that will exhaust the fog from it on queue (controlled) its a simple hole in the underside of the crystal ball that runs into a plastic electrical box (2 gang) with a couple small fans mounted inside to suck the air out of the crystal ball and exhaust it thru some 1" pvc conduit out the back of the unit.

Card mechanism

This one was fun and frustrating. The original one was fashioned to emulate an old fashion mechanism I saw somewhere online. It is a simple quarter turn mechanism, with the cards stacked criss cross in a hopper. The unit activates and rotates the hopper the 1/4 turn and the card falls out the cutout (same size as card) below it.


This is the base for the prototype I used the first year and it worked (most fot the time!) and the cards needed to be criss crossed going in it was a worthwhile attempt, but a bit time consuming on the reloads.

Well traffic that year was pretty steady, and I needed to reload the hopper, so it was either up the capacity or find something on ebay.... ebay won for under 50 bucks and I have a real card dispenser mechanism in now and don't need to reload for about 500 or so runs :)

Coin Slot

Perhaps the simplest thing I needed to make. A couple short scraps of strapping, a micro switch and a plastic container .

Fog anyone

A shelf was built inside the base (upper left side) that allows adequate clearance and ventilation. the output of the fogger was routed up inder the crystal ball using 1/8 in copper tubing, the nozzle end of the flogger was removed and the copper tube slides over the exposed tube from the fogger (easy removal for refills and maintainance). I used a small piece of aluminum to make a deflector inside the crystal ball area where the fog enters the ball, so it diffuses the fog stream and doesn't create any obvious spots inside where the fog blasts onto the inside surface.
There is also a catch cup under the base of the crystal ball that will catch any condensed fog vapor and allow it to drain safely out of the unit, again with the 1/8 in tubing.

Oszlar Finishing Detailing

We finally are ready to finish off and do the inside of the glass cage. This is where we see Oszlar and the presentation.

Crystal ball

The ball is a 16 in clear acrylic lamp shade for the art deco style outdoor post lamps. I found the shade at azpartmaster.com at a fair price (~$30). It is placed over a 5" piece of PVC pipe that sticks up from the cases inside floor ( top of the base unit or bottom of the unit). It is finished with a piece of styrofoam that was cut to fit around the outside of the pvc pipe. This piece was primed and sprayed silver to give the crystal ball a base.
On the inside of the crystal ball there is a round piece of frosted drafting mylar to form the screen where the image is projected.

Projection

The projection lens is actually under Oszlars torso, there is a cut out there that the lens sticks up through, and points inside the crystal ball.
The lens was obtained from ____???___ for about $15. I built a lens holder that, well holds the lens in place and at the appropriate angle. The projection, as I said, comes from Oszlars torso, and there needs to be a clear path from the lens to the crystal ball (His beard is almost in the way and clothing needs to be arranged accordingly).

Finally Oszlar Himself

His body is made from a simple PVC frame and fittings, a bit of foam, duct tape and a wig head. The face was a Spencer gifts after Halloween Sale item from hte year before. The LEDS were fitted into the eys. Hands again post Halloween sale items. His cape a curtain from the local Christmas Tree shops and a bit of gold lame for his turban.

--- So far The rest is yet to be posted ---

Linux Inside

core OS is the Mythdora distribution ?? need to check . With PERL scripts runnign the system

control system Overview

Relay subsystem

Here is a schematic of the Overall Hookup to the relay Points (note control coils not shown)

Coin Slot interfacing

Card dispenser

System Schematics

programming/scripting

Main Perl Script:
ioMain.pl
Dependency script:
numconv.pl

Original Reference Script: io.pl.orig