supplementary training

2009 I attended a supplementary course in special effects at PYRO Smålands Krutbruk AB.

We learned how to blow up and flip a car using petrol charges and zinkit + flash powder loaded in a pyretechnic piston that was placed in the ground, partially covered with soil, under the car.
We also blew up a set house with 5g cordtex, flash cracker cal. 21, a pyrotechnic dirt canon, and a petrol charge.

We added some other effects too, just for fun and to get a “story” in the short video:

The three step car explosion was made with;
three smaller petrol charges under the car,
a small flash light maroon under the hood and two flash crackers inside the cabin to break windows + the pyrotechinc piston,
and also two petrol charges inside the car.
If you ask me the timing wasn’t perfect! We should’ve fired the “flipper” when the first petrol charges was triggered due to the slow expansion of the gas inside the piston.
The car was also quite overloaded with petrol, we used about 9 liters!!! 3 liters under the car at three different places, and 6 liters inside the cabin in two mortars!
Could’ve been much less petrol!

The house was blown up with four different techniques fired in three (very quick) steps.
The first wall (to the right) we rigged with 8 flash crackers cal. 21 by drilling holes in the wooden braces.
The opposite wall was rigged with a dirt cannon, a mortar inside the house aimed at the wall, that was loaded with a flash light maroon and chalice pellets. Actually this wall was the only “real” one, built with braces and plywood, the other walls and the roof where only bracing and veneer. If you look closely at 0:50 you can see that the left wall gets blown away about 5 meters!
The other walls and the roof was snaked with lots of meters 5g cordtex.
And finally, under the roof we rigged a 3 liters petrol charge place in a mortar at the center of the house, the petrol and cordtex was fired at the same time.

Here you can see a play list of “behind the scenes” from the SFX course:

]]> http://crowstudio.se/special-effect-course-2009/feed/ 0 http://crowstudio.se/larva-2010/ http://crowstudio.se/larva-2010/#comments Sat, 31 Mar 2012 18:58:17 +0000 Daniel http://crowstudio.se/?p=868 More old stuff

Animatronic larva

This little cute creature is made by Peter at Gothenburg Prop Makers. I helped him to make a servo controller board and to program the radio transmitter.

The larva was exposed in the exhibition hall at Gothenburg Film Studios during the Open set 2010.

Here you can see the “making of” video and the larva in action:

The larva was really popular amongst the visitors, probably because they could try to control it by them self.

]]> http://crowstudio.se/larva-2010/feed/ 0 http://crowstudio.se/gothenburg-film-studios-trailer/ http://crowstudio.se/gothenburg-film-studios-trailer/#comments Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:20:06 +0000 Daniel http://crowstudio.se/?p=826 Continue reading →]]> Putting up some old material!

Open set 2010

I made the pyrotechnic special effects in this trailer for GFS open set 2010.

Open set changed name to GoKinema the following year.
Check out the open set films at Gothenburgs Film Studios vimeo channel!

fireCrow: first draw

The firing system was originally designed for squibs (SFX body hits), so it’s very important that the size is as small as possible to be easily concealed under the actor’s clothes.

At first we were stuck with the idea of a wireless firing system, but when we found the ATtiny4313 with “a lot” more memory (4K instead of 2K) than the ATtiny2313, we started to fantasize about what could be done with all that space!

As I said before, why make a closed platform like a firing system when you can make something that a wider range of people can use, like a versatile micro controller with plug-in cards?

Said and done, I started to draw a real schematic (not like the old ones made in paint) in Cadsoft Eagle. After the schematic was done I moved over to the PCB design, there was a lot of redrawing done before I ended up with the final design of fireCrow v1.0.

Below you can see how it evolves and gets cleaner (top left 1st, bottom right final):

When the design was done I sent my files to seeedstudio for manufacturing.
I was very pleased when the PCBs finally arrived to me:

Of course we found a design flaw that slipped through. The voltage regulator I’d chosen had shifted V-in and V-out on the footprint, and the RX and TX LED didn’t work as assumed (always on).

We switched the voltage regulator for a better one (with more mA) and just skipped the RX and TX LED on the next PCB assembled.
Not too bad for a first time PCB design if you’d ask me!

Here is the fireCrow v1.0 soldered and ready to get its firmware flashed:

The next step was to build the remote control, or the fireNest as we named it.
Actually, I built a prototype remote with a Arduino FIO as brain, so David could easily get started with the firmware testing.

Here are some photos from the build:

Wiring of push buttons and LEDs:

FIO in place and fitted inside the box:

Almost finished:

Everything in place! Actually the ON LED gives a nice visual feedback inside your palm when holding it, no need to look at the led:

After a little tampering with the firmware, David got it to work as it should:

What you see is the remote control scanning for the receiver when turned on.
All LEDs flashing means the receiver is found and identified, then what follows is a simple firing test with the receiver hooked up to some LEDs.

One of the last things I did before starting with v2 was a 2 channel prototype plug-in card:

Later on I managed to fit continuity check for both channels, a very desirable feature when it comes to pyrotechnics

Here is a 75 meters range test we did:

And here is another test at 25 meters:

Here is a size comparison with a professional 6 channel squib system, called Holatron, and our fireCrow v1.0 with the 2 channel plug-in card:

Afterwards, David and I had a meeting with Lennart, from the Gothenburg Opera House, and David Peter, the pyrotechnician next-door, about the fireCrow and what they liked and did not like with the system, and what could be improved. We had a lot of new ideas how to refine the fireCrow and go on to version 2.

So this is the end for v1.0! But the story goes on…
…in another post

Don’t miss how it all started!
Also, take a look at the technical overview of the fireCrow v1.0

Last year in April I had the opportunity to get into the project Sprängar Bängtsson, a TV series that is aimed for children and youth.
A pilot episode was made, in which I made a neat little pneumatic cake and cream explosion!
Unfortunately it didn’t get aired…not yet that is

A couple of days ago I got a link to vimeo, here is the 3 min intro:

Eye of the Cambot 3000

This was my small contribution to GoKinema this year…

…a Cylon scanner to this über cool robo statue – Cambot 3000.

Anders at Gothenburg Prop Makers made the fantastic robot and I helped him to give it “life”!
The bot is made from old film lamps, lenses, tripods, and old camcorders, it stood in the entry hall at Gothenburg Film Studios during GoKinema.

I used my old friend, the internet, (have you heard about it, it’s great! ) to find a-simple-to-make-circuit for a 16 LED scanner and came up with a nice page: www.attiny.com

I had some problems though! Don’t know if it’s my lack of experience or if the actual schematics is incorrect. Either way thanks to the schematic I came up with my own version made out of the old one, here it is:

I actually skipped the 180 ohms resistor connected to the LEDs, instead I used 5 volts LEDs with internal resistors.
I think this is by far the simplest, fewest components (only 23pcs plus battery), 16 LED scanner I’ve seen without any programming needed!
Also, I added a power plug connector for the 5 volt and a switch (only had a 2P DIp switch at hand) to make it easier to power it and turn it on/off when mounted in the robot head.

The scanner was made on a perforated prototype board, not very practical but I didn’t have time to make a PCB.

If I’d had more time, I would’ve added 16 rectifier diods and 16 capacitors (about 220uf) to give a nice smooth fading effect to the LEDs. The rectifiers have to be there so the capacitors won’t be short circuited, because the 74HC138 is high when not active and low when active.

I’m very happy that I got a Dremel, it made it much easier to tool the board!

I put some tape on the back side as insulation to make it easier for Anders to place it inside the robot head.

The end result was a little bit messy but when Anders put the LEDs into a custom made socket (sorry no photo) it worked great!

LED scanner installed in the robtot head.

This photo is taken at our workshop. You could find some pretty cool stuff there if you look around!

I wonder if they’ll come up with something like this in the future?

I hope not, it might go Terminator!

Feels almost unreal, they’re so tiny 45x40mm and 45x30mm! I really hope we didn’t miss something important or made any critical design flaws! Anyways, here they are!

fireCrow v2.0

PyroFyro v2.0

I also got the neat little handheld spectrum analyzer, looks nice!
So now all we can do is wait for the electronics to arrive.
(sorry for the crappy photos)

Igår var jag i “Hallen” och hjälpte Peter att programmera två radiosändare som ska styra en monstermask till ett hemligt projekt

Peter sätter fast vajer för läpprörelse

Ögonen monteras på sina kulleder

Allt på plats förutom ögonlocken och skinnet, tyvärr får jag inte visa bilder på det färdiga resultatet än.
Kommer att komma en video på ansiktet med ögon och munrörelse så snart jag får lägga upp det

Lite ändring av vajerpunkterna som ska röra på ögonbrynen, dom gick emot fästena till ögonlänkarna

Allt som allt så är det 9st servon som kontrollerar ansiktsrörelserna.
Det krävs två radiooperatörer för att styra hela spektaklet, en för ögonen och en för munnen/käken!

In the beginning there were only 2 channels…

It all started with an idea about making a small and secure 2 channel wireless firing system primary used for squibs (sfx body hits). I didn’t thought that there was anything like that on the market, all I knew about was a single channel, made in China system that was quite expensive, lack of security and didn’t have a nice form factor (if you aske me).

So i simply started to investigate how to make my own system, what kind of hardware to use and how to put it together, since I didn’t have any knowledge about electronics to start with it was like a jungle for me.
Simultaneously my friend David started to play around with this amazing microcontroller called Arduino, he heard about it on a “talk” at FSCONS I belive.
Things took an exciting turn when I early in February 2009 I mentioned my idea to David.
The flame was lit!

From the beginning there was a lot like learning to write code, much copy and paste!
I looked at schematics on Arduinos, floating led light circuits and many more, to figure out how to do things the right way. Of course there was a lot of asking around at forums, mostly Svenska Elektronikforumet (Swedish forum for electronics), thanks guys, you helped a lot!!!

After some research we stumbled over the XBee. Seemed like it was quite commonly used with Arduinos and other wireless project that needed the same level of security as we did.
We decided to skip the microcontroller on the receiver because the XBee had its own I/O ports that we thought we could use, the transmitter on the other hand we used a ATtiny2313, David found out that it could run an Arduino tiny core which saved a lot of coding and time!

When I did my fisrt schematics it looked quite different to the ones I make today, back then I draw them in paint, now a days I use Eagle!
Here are the oldest schematics I could find (not the first) of the transmitter and receiver:

There is an ATtiny2313 added to the receiver (below) so this have to be the second version

About four months later and much redrawing we had two “working” prototypes with some minor bugs. We called the “system” PyroFyro (something like PyroFiring translated) they looked like this:

In August David became proud father of his son Frode and we had to take a small brake with the project.

I think we picked up the project again in the summer of 2010.
We then discovered there was a problem using the XBee to directly control the relays, if pressing the buttons to fast after each other some kind of buffer overflow made a delay on the firing.
This was one of the minor bugs we had, in generally the two first button press worked fine if not pressed to close, but there was no continuity and therefore not reliable.

After many hours of googling and reading we decided to add a microcontroller to the receiver, we also added external crystals to the microcontrollers to get the serial communication to work correctly.

This is how it looked after the modification:

Unfortunately we ran in to some more trouble with the receiver. Somehow one of the channels got f**ked up after adding the microcontroller, a transistor broke I think, and of course the backside was covered with silicone so it was a pain in the ass to fix if even possible at all

The worst thing about this was that I where supposed to use the PyroFyro to shoot Daniel, my brother in law, as a birthday present later on!
So, I had to improvise by making a relay shield to fit on an Arduino FIO. It worked out quite well except that when we should do the shooting the battery somehow got fried so we couldn’t use it anyway!
Luckily my friend Lennart helped out so Daniel finally could get “killed” !

The dude with the protecting glasses is me taking of the “victim” his bloody gears.
If you look closely you could see the clumsy receiver in his back pocket:

From here on the project took other turns!
I’ve started to do the schematics and PCB design in Eagle and we had plans for a new MCU and we’d decided to turn it into an open hardware multi-platform microcontroller.
So this was the end for the 2 channel PyroFyro system that started it all, but never the less the beginning and rise of the fireCrow! ]]> http://crowstudio.se/it-begun-with-a-small-idea/feed/ 3 http://crowstudio.se/finally/ http://crowstudio.se/finally/#comments Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:35:27 +0000 Daniel http://crowstudio.se/?p=307 Continue reading →]]> fireCrow v2.0 PCB’s ordered

Yesterday I ordered the PCB’s for the fireCrow v2.0 and the PyroFyro 4ch module.
Here below you can see the PCB designs:

I also ordered a hand held Spectrum Analyzer for 2.4GHz so we can do some diagnostics on signals and stuff