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  • Lighting a trail?

    We have a portion of our haunt that takes the victims through the woods. We have used fires in barrels, kerosene lamps/lanterns, and tiki torches. This year the trail was primarily tiki torches for lighting. This is a HUGE pain because of the expense in fuel for the torches but mainly the amount of time it takes to fill them all. Does anyone have any suggestions on an alternate method to light the trail. We have some Precision Alpha LED lights purchased from darklight and we've discussed using them but aren't sure it will give us the right lighting for the woods. Also with suggestions, keep in mind that we have power issues. Meaning; it is a long trail and running extension cords to power lights is really not a possibility.

    My assumption is that we aren't the first haunt to tackle this obstacle and that some of you will have some good suggestions. Any advice is appreciated!
    Stephen

    The Twisted Forest
    www.thetwistedforest.com
    www.facebook.com/TheTwistedForest

  • #2
    Back in our early years we had to rent a generator yearly and actually strung together orange and purple Christmas style lights to run along about 200 feet of trail. This was a pain because you can only have 5 strands together but with today’s technology of LED lights you can actually connect up to 43 strands of 20'-30' lights. Before things like that were available we graduated to using LED lights focused on points so walking the trail was like playing connect the dots. This was easy to do off a single power source wire ran all the way along the train and linked into wherever we wanted LED's.
    Matthew Rairden
    Circle of Ash Haunted Attraction
    Project Manager
    Find us on Facebook
    www.circleofash.com

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    • #3
      Dark lights work great

      I went to a larege trail haunt that used a combination of dark lights every 20-40 ft and solar powered light stakes to illuminate trail and props.It looked pretty sweet.

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      • #4
        Solar

        Let me caveat this by saying I have not tried it yet, but as we were looking at a haunted trail idea I was looking mainly at solar powered lights. The great thing about today's solar lights is that most use a small solar panel that charges a set of re-chargable batteries. If you have an area where the trees are too thick to let the lights charge themselves, it is easy to switch out the batteries. I found quite a few sets that look like rocks and aren't quite as obnoxious as the regular floods.

        It may not be a perfect solution, but I think it could be used in combination with other sources.

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        • #5
          Thanks

          Thanks for the suggestions. hauntpro I assume you are talking about the LED lights that darklightsystems.com makes? They are awesome and we will most likely use them.

          I had never thought about using solar lights Amanda, but as you mentioned it may be a problem because of the forest the solar panels may not get enough light. Also, just thinking out loud, what do you do when the light stops working because it looses power? Also, I failed to mention that I HATE batteries! LOL

          mrfoos, I am very interested in these lights you built. I would like to see what they look like and what the light they produce looks like. Also, maybe you could do a quick tutorial. ?

          If you don't know about the lights offered by darklight, check them out. I am not affiliated with them in any way but we used their products for the first time this year and it is AMAZING stuff. Also the help/tech support you get from them is second to NONE! Unless I see a better alternative looks like that is what we need to go with.
          Stephen

          The Twisted Forest
          www.thetwistedforest.com
          www.facebook.com/TheTwistedForest

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          • #6
            Wow

            Thanks! I like that promo video! I met Allen with Stiltbeast Studios at TW this year. He is AWESOME. We've used a lot of his video's to make some great looking stuff on a low budget. Love that guy! Going to look into these for sure!!!
            Stephen

            The Twisted Forest
            www.thetwistedforest.com
            www.facebook.com/TheTwistedForest

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            • #7
              Man that video was awesome! And the lights looked great too, I never would've guessed they were that price!

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              • #8
                HEre is the tutorial for the LED lights that Mrfoos modified, Im sure with it and his list you can piece together what he did and make your own.

                Allen H
                www.Stiltbeaststudios.com
                http://www.youtube.com/user/Stiltbea...s?feature=mhee

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                • #9
                  Great tutorial on making LEDs

                  I built some of these myself from this video with some modifications to fit my needs. They work great and cost me very little to make. I plan on making more next year for spot lighting specific props and areas inside and outside!
                  Travis "Big T" Russell
                  President
                  Big T Productions Inc

                  Owner and Operator of "The Plague" and "Camp Nightmare"

                  Customer Quote of the year: "Damn, I pissed myself"

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                  • #10
                    LED's

                    Thanks for posting that tutorial! Can't say how much I (all of us at The Twisted Forest) appreciate what you do for this industry Allen!!!

                    We bought some LED's and put some lights together. We did modify the barrel slightly. We used an aluminum arrow instead of the tomato stake, no idea if this is any better but the inside of the arrow is brushed aluminum so it may be a little more reflective. It is more expensive so we are going to try and find them cheaper or just buy some aluminum tubes to cut. In the images below you can see the inside of the arrow and the other picture is all the lights. We purchased one of each color from the site to see which colors we liked best. There were 2 that had a cool effect, they transitioned from RGB. One was slow and one was fast.

                    Now that we've learned about these LED's we are coming up with a lot of different uses for them! One idea we have is to use the Tiki torch holders and put maybe 3 LED's (Warm White, Red, & Yellow) in the stem of the holder pointing up towards where the fuel can would sit and attach something reflective on the top so the light reflects down and out of the Tiki holder. This would really be for effect rather than lighting the trail. Then, we will probably take the green LED's and hang them up above the trail pointing down. Any thoughts about the reflector on top of the Tiki?


                    Arrow.jpgLEDs.jpg
                    Stephen

                    The Twisted Forest
                    www.thetwistedforest.com
                    www.facebook.com/TheTwistedForest

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                    • #11
                      Rusted Antique Lanterns

                      If you want something with not only a great look but also something that will light your trail and go with the theme! I invite you to checkout our site. We have great bargains on multiple items including if you are interested in several lanterns. We have sold hundreds of these to many great haunted houses including Disturbia Haunted House. We have bright battery operated leds for them that will last the season. Checkout the site and give me a call. I can probably help you with other lighting ideas that would go great with your haunt. And not only light the way but really set your haunt off!
                      Thanks,
                      Damon Carson
                      www.frightmaster.weebly.com
                      Damon Carson

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                      • #12
                        If your using or have no problem using Burn Barrels.. Just get some Old Oil drums (50gal.) and goto your local stores and start collecting old pallets, they make good and free firewood. Dont see how this wouldnt work, same goes with cardboard etc. And LINT from your dryer makes an excellent fire starter.
                        http://limbohaunt.com
                        Twitter: @LimboHaunt

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                        • #13
                          Hey guys I thought I would throw this out there-
                          http://www.harborfreight.com/solar-p...att-68751.html

                          I used this solar panel and two car batteries to power almost 100 LED,s after six hours or so they start to dim so I moved a third battery into the mix to finish out the night. the first two batteries were charged by the solar panels and the third was charged where I had power and dropped off when it was needed.
                          It may or may not work for you, the whole set up was around $500
                          Allen H
                          www.Stiltbeaststudios.com
                          http://www.youtube.com/user/Stiltbea...s?feature=mhee

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            website correction

                            Just incase you clicked on my site and nothing came up! Sorry! Key must of stuck or something this is the correct address. www.frightmasters.weebly.com
                            Thanks
                            Damon Carson
                            www.frightmasters.weebly.com
                            Damon Carson

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