In what's becoming a tradition in the Baker household, I'm excited to reveal the latest creation in our custom Christmas display series.
Inspired by the mischievous charm of Dr. Seuss’s Grinch, this year's instalment combines the sweetness of a candy cane with the frosty excitement of a snow blizzard, controlled by the green man himself.
Throw on your Christmas sweater and catch the launch of The Grinch's Candy Cane Blaster below.
Merry Christmas 🎄
The build
I started this project with a few core design principles
- all aspects of the display must be fully autonomous
- the display must run entirely from mains power
- the display must have no reliance on network connectivity
We'll achieve these objectives by
- providing power supplies for the control boards and components
- inclusion of a meter box to house the electronics
- using a serial interface instead of wireless & MQTT to communicate with the control boards
- incorporating a large bucket to store the snow juice - enough for a week at a time
The cannon pump and jet fans are horizontally stacked in PVC piping spanning the length of the candy cane. The snow liquid is pumped from the large bucket into a smaller canister closer to the internal pump. Once activated, the pump propels the liquid, mixes it with air, and delivers it to the front of the cannon, where the jet fans thrust it out.
The cannon moves on a horizontal axis, driven by a high-torque stepper motor connected to a lead screw and mounting assembly.
3D printed parts
A collection of drawings designed and 3D printed for this project.
Snaps
snow testing