FireFlicker

From Simreal

---

We used a flickering effect for the kennel at HauntedTrails2000. In this effect, we wanted the light to look like one of those dying bulbs you get in parking lots and scary movies... an erratic flicker, not of fire, but of fading electronics.

The flicker effect is a simple circuit that was surprisingly effective. In my book, Animatronics, it is a 555-timer (Figure 12-5) that is feeding a zero-cross AC driver (Figure 11-1). The beat frequency between the timer's (variable; set to a good effect) pulse and the 60Hz switching limit of the AC made an eery stuttering flicker.