Flying Reindeer

[Robot]

Yes I know Christmas is long gone...........but I just came across some pics from my last Christmas project.

An Engineer at work illuminated a plastic Reindeer and had it move across his lawn on a cable. I thought I would do one better

Most of the parts I had, some I ordered from McMaster-Carr.

I wanted to use a plastic blow molded Reindeer, but I got started late and all were sold out, except for the ones on ebay that were $200.00

So I decided to use the Reindeer I had, shown in this pic

 

[Robot]

I built a 12' angle iron tower, the illuminated Reindeer rotates around the tower, with an angular velcity of approximately 10 mph. This is the overall pic of the tower.

 

[Robot]

Here is the base of the tower.

 

[Robot]

Top of the tower, showing 10 lb. counter weight from my weight bench. Cable and (blue)twisted pair of power wires visible.

 

[Robot]

The drive assembly. An old AC gearmotor using a "pinch" drive. Graphite brushes and brass slip rings transfer power to the deer's lights. Pillow blocks support the 1" black pipe drive shaft. The blue twisted pair of power wires start here and go up the hollow drive shaft.

 

[Robot]

Motion test, the cable simulating the weight of the Reindeer. Counterweight(distance from axis of rotation) was tweeked to balance the rotation.

 

[CrashTestDanny]

Nice!

 

[Robot]

Approx 40' diameter, timelapse pic of the Reindeer's flight path.

 

[Robot]

Close up of flight path, yes my neighbors know I'm a crazy inventor, they expect to see robots or someting similar moving about my yard

 

[Vonderbach]

 

[Evil_keeps_me_young]

you have way to much time on your hands... but looks good...


need pic at night... maybe a video...

 

[Robot]

DOH, my computer blocked the image

 

[Vonderbach]

It's just a Youtube clip from Christmas Vacation where Clark goes overbaord with the Chritmas lights.

 

[Robot]

It's just a Youtube clip from Christmas Vacation where Clark goes overbaord with the Chritmas lights.

Yep that's me

 

[ditchdr]

And to think I was gonna add installing Christmas lights to my lawn business this season.. If someone comes out with that they can do it them selves.

Now if we could removed the deer, put a motorcycle of some kind on it and sned my kid for a ride I would be the coolest daddy in the world!!!!!!!!

 

[macon454]

 

[Hayabusa2005]