Really Cool.
I made this back in '82 for the Los Angeles Museum of Fine Arts Contempory Art Council's Awards Banquet 'Tribute 82', in Paramount Studio's Sound Stage 13 (the one they filmed the first Star Trek movie in) .
Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner were guest speaker. The controller consists of about 35 LM555 Timer IC circuits that control the UFO landing and taking off special effect. The light rings are aluminum tubes welded together by the Lighting Designer Sam Salde (my boss).They range in size from 3 feet in diameter
way up in the distant corner to 30 feet in diameter (closest to camera). Each ring has 16 segments of neon
wired in opposing pairs to create 4 channels. The segments are numbered CW 1,2 3,4 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4, with all like number outputs controlled by the same signal. So there are four control signals, ch-1 , ch-2, ch-3, ch4. The channels are sequenced sequentially CW for landing , CCW for taking off. Since like channels oppose each other on the ring it creates the POV illusion of rotation. If you set the speed pot for the :
ring-1: small ring to
VERY VERY FAST and the
ring-2: next largest ring to
VERY FAST , and the
ring-3: next largest to
FAST and the
ring-4: next largest to
MEDIUMring-5: next largest to
MEDIUM SLOWring-6: largest ring to
SLOW the resulting special effect in a dark soundstage is that of a flying saucer landing.
The "Grand Entrance" was Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner leading all the guests down the ramp
to the tune of Star Wars with the flying saucer special effect running at full speed.
The photo , however was taken after the guests had eaten dinner and were dancing to live orchestra waltz
music so the rings are NOT being sequenced, and ALL rings are rotating at a graceful slow pace chosen to match the waltz music as close as possible.
It took 3 months to design the circuit and 3 days to a week to wire it up.
It worked perfectly on the first test at exactly 11:45am for the Fire Marshal inspection test. (which, BTW,
is a PASS/FAIL test. If the equipment does not work as advertised, the vendor is ordered to remove it from the premises without delay and no second chances are given for the test. That's Hollywood for you)
The controller can be set to reverse the flight direction and spin direction. This creates the effect of the saucer increasing spin speed as it takes off toward the distant smallest ring.
BTW-The water fountain in the lower left corner was also my controller. It controlled 48 water pumps to
create a dancing water fountain effect .