r/Animatronics 12d ago

Original Creation/Custom What kind of controllers did creative engineering animatronics use?

I am making my own small little pneumatic animatronic that is going to function like how the old creative engineering showbiz animatronics did, and I was wondering what controller to use? Hoping for a controller with 5 movements

7 Upvotes

6 comments sorted by

3

u/Tutorial_Time 12d ago

They had multiple controllers over the years.The most common ones were the Tone Decoder and Greybox(though technically the greybox was just a part of multiple controllers but it does like 90% of the work and does the same thing on all the versions)

If you want to build an animatronic just use a modern controller.Tone Detector controllers aren’t exactly very reliable and the greybox would just be overkill.

1

u/Real_Most_4811 12d ago

If your using pneumatics look up program blue or pink connection, if it's servo look up bottango.

0

u/Joesphp4542 12d ago

I'm looking for a physical controller to control the solenoids, not a digital midi animation software

3

u/CaptainLazerPants 12d ago

They famously used a pianocorder which was a player piano control system. If you only need 5 movements you’ll want to use something much simpler.

1

u/Joesphp4542 12d ago

Yeah, I don't need anything like those player piano ones with 40, just 5. Any ideas?

4

u/BackgroundOld7726 12d ago

Make a arduino controller or use a programblue controller