Started my pack about a month ago but I havent made real progress till now. My build is based off of Stefan’s plans since they seem to be the most accurate. I Have roughly everything built and now I’m going back piece by piece to detail them. I’m going to becreating a plug, making a rubber mold from that, and then casting fiber glass shells till the mold basically falls a apart. So far I havent spent much on material. I’m lucky that my work has a wood shop and I’ve been using mostly scraps of melamine for my build ( more work but hey, its free). I may even be able to get some rubber for my mold and chopped fiber glass for free since my company uses this stuff in bulk everyday.
I decided to create a thread showing my progress so far. I started with the Crank Generator cause to me it seemed the most work. I’ll update as I make significant advances. Also, I’m going to attempt to keep a total cost for the project so I can keep track of how much money I’ve blow. Feel free to ask any question on my processes or post comments and suggestions. Any ways with out further delay here is my pack build…
Crank Generator:
Crank Gen. Built , sanded, and all edges listed on Stefan’s plans as having a radius have been routed
Another shot of the Crank Gen from the back.
Detailed shot of the routed edge after the Crank has been primed and scratches have been filled with spot puddy.
Full shot of the Crank primed and patched.
Since all my edges are routed, I decided to take 1/8" strips of acrylic and bent them over the edges using a heat gun. I was able to do this but after doing so I would not recommend it. It was a lot of work and the pieces were hard to keep straight without getting burned. Its gonna take some work and bondo to fix some of the bends but I’ll manage.I’m hoping it pays off in the end.
Another shot from the other side.
A shot of the bottom pieces after being bent and before being applied to the Crank Gen.
Bottom pieces applied.
Crank Generator with all “fins” applied ( except bottom right).
Thats all for now. I still have to sand and fix some things on the part as well as trim/ sand most of the fins to the right length, but I’m going to wait till the whole pack is together before doing a final touch up. No use in fixing spots if they are going to be covered up by another part .
Oh, I know. I just haven’t had the chance to sand them down yet. The ones on the sides are too long too, but I didn’t want to trim them until I have the booster and eda next to it so I don’t cut them to short.
Managed to get a few things done today on the pack. Check the pics and captions below to see my current progress.
Started with my crank generator. I decided to trim and sand the bottom fins today. I started by trimming them all the same length. Now I know the fins are suppose to stop at the bottom of the Crank gen, but if you look at the crank’s side view on stefan’s plans, you’ll see the fins actual wrap around the bottom and die into the bottom of the crank. If its not screen accurate that’s fine, but I think it looks good this way.
I started by building a jig for my belt sander to run on. I cut it at the angle I want the fins to taper toward the bottom.
I then clamped the crank gen in place to the jig. Then I began to run the sander down the ramp until the fins were sanded to the correct height and angle
Here’s what it looked like when finished and dusted with a coat of primer.
My Cyclotron is made out of Insulation foam cause its easy to work with and fairly forgiving. Below is the first 2 rings cut and glued together. The top ring has a 3/8" radius fillet applied to it.
Yea probably Brad. That way I don’t have to glue them to every pack I make. The only things I’m not going to include on the mold are the Ion arm and any misc tubing such as the booster tube or HGA . Undercuts are the bane of a molds existence, the less the better. Still debating whether or not to cast the N-Filter in the mold or separate.
Tomorrow or this weekend, I’m going to re-cut the bottom part of the cyclotron cause I just cut it round instead of faceting where the 15 squares go. When that’s done, I’m going to water putty all the foam parts in preparation for primer. Once my motherboard come from Irrican, I’m going to dry fit the parts to the board before I attach them together. This way I can make any adjustments I need to the buck to fit the board as good as possible. Thanks for the positive responses so far gang.
well a lot of folks cast the n-filter on there, bu yo make the mold taller by a few inches in that section. You could always do a smaller mold and attach it onto the fiberglass, I figured that you weren’t casting the cables LOL. I put a wooden block into the ion arms I did for Ryan and attached them with 2 3" screws. If you do hollow n-filter separately you could cast the holes and put gauze inside it or window screen mesh to give it real filter look. : ) PS I may have some odds and ends and I have RTV resin molds for knobs etc (just need resin).
what’s your synchronous generator made out of? could you not just sand it flat for the plates? thats what i did and it worked quite well, then i managed to carefully fill the tiny gaps at the edges
Thats what I was thinking. The shorter the mold, the less rubber I have to use. With the n-filter, I like the idea of using abs or pvc tube that way when I drill the holes they will all be even in terms of hole wall thickness ( that make sense?). With fiber glass, you ten to have un-even spots in the resin so your not guaranteed to have nice even walled holes…HAHA can you imaging casting an entire pack cable and all ??
ps first time I tried to post this, I hit the save button…-5 more points for me
The Sync Gen is also made out of foam but there’s actually 2 problems with it. 1) if i sand the sides flat to accommodate for the plates, the diameter now changes and it wont fit right on Irricans motherboard. 2) some how on the bottom of the Sync Gen it bowed out. The only thing I can think happened was the wood glue I used dried around the edges but not in the center of the piece. Then the un-dried glue in the center soaked into the foam and caused it to swell. Oh well Live and learn.
PVC pipe? Why not? Prob 1/4" wall thickness. You can take styrene (maybe 1/16 or 1/8" thick) and glue it with pipe glue to the the top of it and while it’s gooey scupt the “weld” mark around the N-filter (just a thought) what are you using for the plates around the bottom? I think they are 1/8" thick and 2 1/4" by 2 1/8" (chekc the plans to be sure) and there are 15 (one smaller one and 14 about the same size. If you used wood glue on the Synch maybe wood glue the pieces onto it? tricky part would be clamping, maybe use painter’s tape? You seem to be on the right track–just tossing out ideas. Do you have a drill press? That would be great for the holes in the N-filter. More labor than a casting, but cooler and more realistic and stonger made of PVC pipe. Hardware stores like Keystone Plumbing sell it by 5 foot and ten foot lenghts pretty cheap. That’s a lot of N-filters LOL!
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