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Hey,
thought I share my project with you. I've been working on a Fortune Teller machine, called "Cato's Predictions".
Cato randomly chooses one of three tarot cards and tells a fortune. "The Devvil" is already finished,
"The Queen of the Pentacles" and "The Tower" will follow.
Any suggestions on what I should improve?
Tell me what you think

Very good, pics of the inside too please!

This machine is great, really scare the s!it out of kids and well adults. Was this completely scratch built, would be good as mentioned to see how it works

Yes, that really is quite scary.
Remarkable job. I'm also curious to see the workings.

Thanks for your comments.
Yes everything build by myself....but it's by far not as professional as you think, if you compare it to other machines.
I'm gonna take some pictures from the inside next week.

Here is a video which shows how the head movement works.



..and another one:

Thanks for posting. For me, watching traditional motor driven cams with pulleys operating rods and levers and wires that bring everything to life at the front is the exciting part and I appreciate it's a whole load easier using electronic components.

It's interesting you have taken your inspiration from Roger's recreation of Zoltar from Big. His machine is electromechanical with only very few electronic parts ( such as sound etc) as he wanted a machine that could be repaired long into the future rather than having electronic parts that may become obsolete. Look at how many coin operated machines from the 1970s that we reject nowadays as being too hard to keep going with early PCBs.

As far as improvements with yours I always think the eyes of any automaton figure are the most important feature which is why the best ones usually had high quality glass eyes. I like the way your eyes light up but a bit too sinister to operate, it's a fine line between fun or too scary, bearing in mind a family audience.

Original male fortune tellers are much rarer than female ones. In the US there are several for sale at the moment the value of which are down due to most of the bearded ones looking rather like a cross between Omar Sharif and a terrorist Most Americans don't want one of those staring back at them in the games room.