Monster Guts 3-Axis Skull.. anybody got one?
- Thread starter TheLost
- Start date
Jerry-Rigs
New member
Depends on what your capabilities and final goals are.
Also not sure which package is $200
The 3axis skull is -part- of a system. You also need:
You can probably find designs (or make your own) to 3d print the brackets and CNC or 3d print the mounting plate -if- you have the gear and skills. Several years ago, I built a talking skull with moving eyes based around a pico-talk controller. I hand built (cut) the mounting plate from 1/8" hobby plywood. It wasn't difficult but that was nothing near as complex as the 3 axis skull. I think the 3axis skull prices are probably pretty good
MonsterGuts is a very good boo-tique and has a boo-tload of good info. Highly recommended.
Also not sure which package is $200
The 3axis skull is -part- of a system. You also need:
- the skull
- the servos
- a way to program it
- a way to drive it
- a way to sync voice to it
- an eye kit is recommended
You can probably find designs (or make your own) to 3d print the brackets and CNC or 3d print the mounting plate -if- you have the gear and skills. Several years ago, I built a talking skull with moving eyes based around a pico-talk controller. I hand built (cut) the mounting plate from 1/8" hobby plywood. It wasn't difficult but that was nothing near as complex as the 3 axis skull. I think the 3axis skull prices are probably pretty good
MonsterGuts is a very good boo-tique and has a boo-tload of good info. Highly recommended.
Here is a good read if you can make it through most of the 221 pages. I built mine 5 years ago and they are still going strong. IF you can get the "A" plate (someone may make it), and the hole drilled and tapped for 2-56, that is the hardest part. The rest of the hardware I got from McMaster Carr.
If you just want a skull? I bought 10 or so a few years ago at Walgreens, since they were only a buck a piece. I kept going back at the end of Halloween to see if they had more. This years was not as good..the jaw no longer moves. I added a servo to make the jaw move on mine, and used red LED for the eyes. Someplace I have a video posted but I'd have to find it.
TheLost
New member
Thanks for the info.. I'll read through links and see what i come up with. The idea of buying the Monster Guts kit was to save me time (i don't have much time i can give this project)
As for the 'small' details...
I have a CNC and 3D Printer, so if I can find a good build guide i may try to roll-my-own. But i still think the Monster Guts kit might save me a few weeks of time.
As for the 'small' details...
- The Lindberg skulls are only ~$30US
- I have a box of the required servos laying around
- My plan is to use a RaspPi and something like Adafruit's servo driver to control the servos.
- Voice synchro would be done through python code.
- The eye's can wait a year :holloween:
I have a CNC and 3D Printer, so if I can find a good build guide i may try to roll-my-own. But i still think the Monster Guts kit might save me a few weeks of time.
Jerry-Rigs
New member
I don't always know the knowledge and capabilities of people posting here so I was trying to give a heads up just in case. Based on your response, yes, I think the MG kit would give you a nice usable platform much faster than building your own (unless you can find existing 3d models).
MG does good work.
Braveit1
Supporting Member
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJJrMfkUZKo
Years ago I took a cheap Gemmy talking skull and removed all the motor guts and installed a pololu servo controller and some micro servos on a sheet of acrylic with a few bits of wire. Worked good but I never got the time to do anything big. Now that servo controller are under $20 I may revisit this and 3d print a better base.
Used the WAV plug-in with Vixen for a quick motion test.
Years ago I took a cheap Gemmy talking skull and removed all the motor guts and installed a pololu servo controller and some micro servos on a sheet of acrylic with a few bits of wire. Worked good but I never got the time to do anything big. Now that servo controller are under $20 I may revisit this and 3d print a better base.
Used the WAV plug-in with Vixen for a quick motion test.
If you want to control your skull via x-lights and DMX you can get the Board of Chucky from SkullTronix http://www.skulltronix.com/soc.shtml it's $125 but Gil wrote way to control it via X-Lights.
Someone on the xLights FB group was working on a 3D printed design and he has a working prototype being controlled from xLights. I designed the DMX model such that you should be able to customize it to work with any servo that can be controlled with DMX. Its setup to run a Skulltronix skull by default but you can customize it. I also added the ability to import VSA files into xLights. For the demo in this video I imported a VSA file that was provided by Skulltronix and you can see I'm running it with xLights:
Here's a link to the 3D printed skulls. They aren't cheap!!
http://halloweenskulls.com/store/#!...ed-eyes-fully-assembled/p/85037158/category=0
http://halloweenskulls.com/store/#!...ed-eyes-fully-assembled/p/85037158/category=0
HalloweenBob
New member
I know it's been a while since this post has been replied to, but I only just now found it, since I wasn't already a member on this forum. My specialty is Halloween. Thanks to danozfw for mentioning my post. I would say that deciding how much to spend on a prop like this depends on two things. First is what features you want it to have, and secondly, how good and unique you want it to look. If you just want a skull that will move it's jaw in sync with an audio track, or even to a live microphone, you should be able to do that for a little over $100.00 depending on how you accomplish that and if you already have a skull to use or not. If you're starting from scratch, you will need a power supply, some sort of controller card, a skull, some wires and a bunch of time to watch how-to videos.
If you want to get more realism, and you want more than just the jaw to move, you will need to add some sort of software and a computer to run it on to that list. You probably already have a computer, and there are several possible software packages to use, some of them free, but I find that Brookshire Software's VSA is the most intuitive, easy to use and most full-featured of them all. You can get a version of that software that will do more than you need for $80.00.
Most people who have made their own skulls have used the Lindberg skull, because it looked good, and was very light weight. Sadly Lindberg has been bought out, and the skull has been discontinued. Now, what you used to be able to buy for $8.00 to $12.00, now costs $40.00 and up, and supplies are running out. So all the companies that use the Lindberg skull to mount their kits into will be out looking for a replacement as soon as their supplies run out. And the prices will go up.
Then you have to decide if you want the skull to have eyes. Then, do you want the eyes to move. Then, do you want them to move only side to side, or up and down as well. Then do you want them to light up, do you want them to be dimmable, and multicolor, or just on or off and a single color. At most places, you will pay a different amount for each of those feature options. Some of those options may not be important for what you do, so you have to know what you want it to do, and how you want it to look.
I started with the Lindberg skulls and designed a couple different methods for making them move in 3 axes, as laid out in my long Halloween Forum post referenced earlier. (Thanks for that reference as well).
Recently, I have completely started over and designed my own skull, so I'm not at the mercy of suppliers like Lindberg, I also designed my own controller board (DMX) so I don't have to buy from another distributor that may change the design or discontinue it as well. It is true that 3D printing a skull is still expensive, but the results are much better than a kit like the Lindberg was, or any molded skull.
To answer the last post about Halloween Skulls being "not cheap', you are right, but everything is relative. Compared to other skulls which offer the features that mine does, a Halloween Skulls product will cost you less than any other skull with the same features. Half the cost of Skulltronix (The only other product I know of that makes their own skull), and even less than the Monster Guts skull by a bit, once you add in all the options that you would need to make the Monster Guts skull have the same features as mine. And then, you still have to buy the controller board, which is included with mine.
So, it is True that they aren't cheap, but they are a bargain if what you need is a product which has all the features and the quality that I offer compared to what else is out there.
But back to the original statement. It all depends on what you want out of the prop and what it's application is as to what features you want to include. I only sell one model. It has all the features. Maybe someday in the future if there is enough demand, I will make an economy version with fewer features, but for now, that doesn't look like the direction I'll be taking. In any case, thanks for the shout-out.
If you want to get more realism, and you want more than just the jaw to move, you will need to add some sort of software and a computer to run it on to that list. You probably already have a computer, and there are several possible software packages to use, some of them free, but I find that Brookshire Software's VSA is the most intuitive, easy to use and most full-featured of them all. You can get a version of that software that will do more than you need for $80.00.
Most people who have made their own skulls have used the Lindberg skull, because it looked good, and was very light weight. Sadly Lindberg has been bought out, and the skull has been discontinued. Now, what you used to be able to buy for $8.00 to $12.00, now costs $40.00 and up, and supplies are running out. So all the companies that use the Lindberg skull to mount their kits into will be out looking for a replacement as soon as their supplies run out. And the prices will go up.
Then you have to decide if you want the skull to have eyes. Then, do you want the eyes to move. Then, do you want them to move only side to side, or up and down as well. Then do you want them to light up, do you want them to be dimmable, and multicolor, or just on or off and a single color. At most places, you will pay a different amount for each of those feature options. Some of those options may not be important for what you do, so you have to know what you want it to do, and how you want it to look.
I started with the Lindberg skulls and designed a couple different methods for making them move in 3 axes, as laid out in my long Halloween Forum post referenced earlier. (Thanks for that reference as well).
Recently, I have completely started over and designed my own skull, so I'm not at the mercy of suppliers like Lindberg, I also designed my own controller board (DMX) so I don't have to buy from another distributor that may change the design or discontinue it as well. It is true that 3D printing a skull is still expensive, but the results are much better than a kit like the Lindberg was, or any molded skull.
To answer the last post about Halloween Skulls being "not cheap', you are right, but everything is relative. Compared to other skulls which offer the features that mine does, a Halloween Skulls product will cost you less than any other skull with the same features. Half the cost of Skulltronix (The only other product I know of that makes their own skull), and even less than the Monster Guts skull by a bit, once you add in all the options that you would need to make the Monster Guts skull have the same features as mine. And then, you still have to buy the controller board, which is included with mine.
So, it is True that they aren't cheap, but they are a bargain if what you need is a product which has all the features and the quality that I offer compared to what else is out there.
But back to the original statement. It all depends on what you want out of the prop and what it's application is as to what features you want to include. I only sell one model. It has all the features. Maybe someday in the future if there is enough demand, I will make an economy version with fewer features, but for now, that doesn't look like the direction I'll be taking. In any case, thanks for the shout-out.