# animated ouija board



## brandywine1974 (Sep 10, 2005)

Hmmm, you might what to do a search b/c I know I have seen threads about this. I think they usually use magnets.


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## larry (Apr 5, 2002)

I am very interested in making one myself. Let me know if you find a good resource for this please.


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## BudMan (Jan 10, 2007)

Did you ever see the Christmas decoration, it's a mirror made to look like a frozen lake with a skater randomly "skating" around the mirror. It is done with a magnet under the mirror. Maybe, if you can find one, you can hack it. Otherwise, cut out the middle of the table( under the ouiji board), and set up a low rpm motor with a "slide bar" and magnet to get the randomness. Just shooting from the hip here, haven't done it. I seem to remember a thread with a very elaborate setup where by computer words could actually be spelled out.


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## HalloweenBob (Dec 5, 2006)

I made one for my haunt last halloween. It was a compromise, however. What I really wanted to do was out of my price range, but I am working on cheaper alternatives.

Here's what I did:

I mounted a 1 RPM motor under a table. Attached to the motor was an aluminun shaft with a large magnet on the end. (Very strong magnet bought on ebay) I had a limit switch set in the table to each side of the shaft, so when the motor turned far enough that the shaft hit the limit switch, the switch activated a relay that reversed the polarity to the DC motor and it started going the other direction until hitting the limit switch on the other side.

This moved the magnet in an arch formation back and forth slowly. I bought an old 1960's ouija board from ebay that had a nice solid wooden planchette. I mounted a small magnet under the planchette and placed it on the boaard. It followed the magnet from under the table, moving seemingly by itself around the board roughly staying within the arch of the lettering on the board.

Here's what I wanted to do:

I wanted to build a small XY CNC table under the ouija board. This CNC would be computer controlled and could move the planchette to any predetermined point on the board via the same magnet under the table.

I would place a hidden microphone near the Ouija board and ask the TOTers to ask the Mystical Oricle a question. Someone sitting in another room by a computer would hear the question, and type an answer into a custom program on the computer. The computer would then send the planchette to the position on the board for each letter in the answer individually and in order pausing briefly between words.

This would really freak people out! Anyway, I have a freind that works with Robotics that said he could write the program to do that. He said it would be simple. The problem is that I could not find a CNC table for less than a couple thousand dollars after adding the stepper motors and controllers.

I even started an old thread on this board about it. Someone made several suggestions including using the mechanisms from old printers as the linear movements for the X and Y axis in the CNC table.

Sounds like it has promise!

If I do actually do it this year, I will post my results and share the software.


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## BudMan (Jan 10, 2007)

That was the thread that I remember, HalloweenBobs'. Now, if you take what HalloweenBob did and slot the arm and mount the the magnet on the slot, you would have the ability to move along the two axis'. But how do we get that movement? Maybe a similar setup at 90* and bolt the slotted arms together with a bushing in the slots and the magnet on top. You wouldn't be able to spell out specific words, but would get alot more movement. Maybe two different speed motors. Hope I'm not rambling, just thinking out loud. I know nothing about limit switches, HalloweenBob- any info?


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## HalloweenBob (Dec 5, 2006)

A limit switch is simply a micro switch placed at a location that you choose to be the outer "Limit" that you want something to be able to move. When activated, it does whatever you need to do. In my case, I used it to reverse the motor polarity with a multi-pole relay. In other setups, you might use it simply to shut off a motor, so that something does not move past it's "Limit".


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## BudMan (Jan 10, 2007)

Sounds very useful, Kinda know what it does, just never actually saw one or how it works. Can you get them at Radio Shack? I am very electrically challenged.


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## HalloweenBob (Dec 5, 2006)

Yes, just ask for micro switches. The have single pole and double pole. The single poles have just one connection that is normally open until the button is pushed. The Double Poles have a normally open connection and a normally closed connection that opens when the button is pushed. I used simple single pole switches in my design. They are a few bucks for the switch maybe less.


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## Village_Haunt (Dec 1, 2006)

LINKS, VIDEO CLIPS, Please I wanna see....
Thanks,
VH


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## HalloweenBob (Dec 5, 2006)

OK, here's what I actually did. I don't have any info on the CNC stuff that I wanted to do......

Sorry no videos, but I do have a couple of diagrams, and a picture of the finished product.

First, the wiring diagram of how to hook up the limit switches and the relay to reverse the polarity of the motor. Second, a drawing of what the mechanism looked like, and last, a picture of the finished product, which basically just looks like a ouija board.

I did make a mistake in my previous post, I did not use two normally open micro switches for limit switches. I used 1 N.O. (Normally Open) and 1 N.C. (Normally Closed). You can see that in the schematic. Here is a picture of a 2 pole micro switch very similar to what I used. ( http://arcadecontrols.com/images/microswitch_closeup_labelled2.JPG ) You could use two of these, and set one to use the N.O. contact and the other to use the N.C. contact.

This is the DC motor I used: ( http://www.sdp-si.com/D790/PDF/D790C14027.pdf ) It was the 12VDC 1RPM motor part # A 3z16 0010C.


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## tanliwod (Nov 17, 2007)

I have been thinking about this problem for quite some time, and I have an idea that might work, but it would still take some engineering to build it. Rather than having one large magnet attached to a control arm, how about using several dozen strong electromagnets? The planchette would be moved around entirely by electromagnetism. This approach would definitely require some software to control the timing. It would require building a whole lot of electromagnets and spending some time getting the coordinate system movement down, but it would certainly be quiet. I don't think this has to be as complicated as designing a maglev train, but I bet it could be done. Over the next couple of months, I'll try experimenting with simple linear movement to see if the concept is at least viable.


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## stonegate (Nov 2, 2007)

I started building one during the summer but didn't finish--it's about 70% complete.

I started off with a printer carriage and two motors---1 to spin a magnet in a 4" circle and 1 to drive that motor back and forth under the board. I made the board out of 1/4 thick plywood and painted it. It didn't work too good though due to the strength of the magnet (12lb pull) locking the motor when it crossed over top of the metal printer carriage. I redesigned it using aluminum rods then I made a planchette and countersunk a small magnet in it's base and glued nylon feet to ease movement-----it worked great. I just need to finish the electronics now and assemble it (i also built a special table to house the mechanism). My plan is to use a basic stamp to create random motor movement when activated by a sensor.

I thought about CNC'ing it as someone else mentioned, but right now just want to finish this version. I can post pics if anyone is interested.


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## blade46234 (Oct 30, 2006)

I think this is what you were talking about for the CNC hack. The traverse is put together using old dot matrix printers.

http://misc.hackaday.com/2006/07/12/how-to-build-your-own-cnc-mill/


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## askjacob (Jan 3, 2008)

*I made one!*

Hi there, I made one recently for Halloween 2007.

Any questions etc, just ask in here, or at the instructables site....

I have all the details over at instructables on how I made it, with everything you need to know to make your own....

If anyone would want to buy something like the one I made, what would you pay? I have no idea what something like this would be worth....

(next post will have the link as I can't post a link in my 0th post)

Cheers!
Askjacob

PS I just signed up today after seeing the request... looks like I might hang around here!


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## askjacob (Jan 3, 2008)

*Here is the link (I hope)*

here is the link to the one I made:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Animated-Haunted-Ouija-Board/

Let me know what you think!

Cheers
Askjacob


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## icemanfred (Aug 18, 2005)

askjacob, that is cool!
wish I had one. would scare the heck out of the wife.
she wont even let me use on as a decoration.


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## WILLIDEE (Sep 18, 2007)

HalloweenBob said:


> OK, here's what I actually did. I don't have any info on the CNC stuff that I wanted to do......
> 
> Sorry no videos, but I do have a couple of diagrams, and a picture of the finished product.
> 
> ...


This is very good and I would love to try this, thanks.


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## Scary Jerry (Feb 24, 2006)

Just to complicate the issue--- Our seance routine had the planchette moved by the dead gypsy's hand using a servo controlled by VSA. (Gypsy by Mike Fox) No need for the board itself to have any magic.

You could also look at linear motion servos. A couple of those could be controlled very precisely by VSA or any other servo controller.


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## Lynn (Aug 23, 2005)

Love this idea.... may have to see how I could fit this into my vodoo gypsy womans room !!!


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