Fossil's Proton Pack

Equipment Proton Packs
1

Pack progress… sort of.

So I found a bus stop sign in the woods near my house, and it’s in pretty good shape! I figured that it’d be the right size for a proton pack motherboard, and so I brought it home. But alas:

The sign is two inches too short. What to do, what to do, right?

But then I remember the pack WIP thread where someone used foamcore for their entire build, and in particular, I recalled their spacer pattern, which looked like an odd sunflower. This sign would serve as a great one-piece spacer.

See? Room to spare on all sides!

So, I drew it all out with a triangle, t-square, a sharpie, and measurements from Stefan’s plans:

I tried cutting it, but my rotary tool ain’t quite the tool for metal, so looks like I’ll be investing in a jigsaw next. Stay tuned for more!

2

Where is that jigsaw?

3

So yesterday I hung out with Dimitri/Ectoman_913 and his crew, of the Real Ghostbusters of Long Island. They like my PKR build, as well as my hose connector, and so I’ll be buildin’ them some gizmos, and in return, they’re gonna help me with my pack build in the weeks ahead! :smiley:

That day I also tried on not just one pack, but two different packs for the first time.

We’ll be meeting up again soon, because Dimitri talked me into using MDF Board, swathed in Aluminum Flashing for metallic effect. So in a week or so, I’m going shopping, 'cause wearing this has REALLY got me wanting to move forward on my own build. Stay tuned!

4

We will start in a couple of weeks and running through some new building ideas in my head, I will also be building a new pack along with him, so in a few weeks we should start having some pack progress. :slight_smile:

5

Awesome!!! I am glad you are getting help building your pack.. this NY group should be huge eventually !

6

Oh yeah, they’re a tremendous help! Funny you should mention it, because coincidentally:

UPDATE!!!

Today I got picked up by Dimitri and his wife Abby, and we headed over to “HQ”. Chris and Fernando were there as well. I had a lot of aluminum flashing in a shed in the back of my house, so I brought it along for usage on my build. I also brought printed copies of Stefan’s plans for reference, as well as 1:1 scale printouts of the mobo. I decided against the “bus sign” direction I’d been thinking about a few posts ago, and was convinced to try a different attack. After a little planning, we then went shopping.

A trip to Bed Bath and Beyond yielded this marvelous cakepan, perfect size:

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Then we went to Home Depot, where I got a few sheets of MDF, a few allen head socket screws, and other stuff. Those MDF sheets were way less expensive than I thought they’d be-- they were about 6 bucks a sheet, and they were BIG! There they go, in the background while I’m cutting the pattern to trace.

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The remains of an older pack by the LI crew is there on the table.

Then there’s the cutting, with assistance from Fernando and Dimitri. Cutting…

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and cutting…

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and cutting…

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and this picture can not be explained…

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and VOILA.

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Laid my ALICE frame on it, marked off the holes, holes were drilled, and with the assistance of the spacers I got from Vincenzo (thanks again, man!) the mobo was test-mounted!

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If all goes well, I might be back over there again tomorrow, to make the spacer’s top surface, and maybe get started on the upper boxy portion of the pack. Stay tuned, forward motion is now going on!

7

Hot damn, Foss. This is lookin’ better n’ better!

8

i had a lot of fun today, i hope we can do it again next week. hopefully you have everything printed out so theres no problems. pm me and let me know if you need me to bring anything.

9

Good ol’ weekend scratch building session right there.

10

Woh, hold up here. Who said you were allowed to have “fun” with this hobby? Huh? Who!?

. . .

Looks good man, and it looks like you have some competent help too, which is always great.

11

there’s nothing more fun then building weekends!

12

hey fossil, sorry today didn’t work out. But definitly next weekend, we’ll get alot done! :slight_smile:

XxEctoxX bring new hand sander lol

13

hey see if chris can come by wenesday-friday and pick up the table saw.. my dad has been asking when am i gonna give it to you. plus he has some other tools as well.

14

Ok I’ll ask him later.

15

Aww, you guys. :slight_smile:

16

We like to use your thread for personal conversation, :wink:

No one reads it anyway :stuck_out_tongue:

17

Dude I’m serious. Ronnie ur gonna want a table saw for ur build. Make Chris pick up the damn saw

18

OK, Fernando, I called and left a message with Dimitri yesterday, I’ll try calling again today, and I’ll try calling Chris as well. You call 'em too, to see what’s up. Also, if any of you have vicegrips, as well as some bondo and/or epoxy, please bring that as well!

**

PROGRESS**

I’m spending today printing and cutting out the remaining templates I’ll need for tomorrow. Here’s the progress:

My dual-monitor setup for Photoshop, where I mapped out a hollow area for inner workings such as electronics. This is also where I took each page of Stefan’s PDFs, cut and pasted the necessary parts into one multi-layer file, and sized them all accordingly, so they can be printed to scale.

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Here’s the template for the hollow EDA+Gearbox area, printed to scale.

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…and again with EDA and Gearbox templates added:

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Finally, test-fitting all templates for tomorrow. The Gun Mount will come later, as will the Powercell and that upper right corner plate that goes under the HGA.

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I’ve also printed the Palm Coast Busters’ Bumper PDF out, but haven’t cut it yet. Yep, I’m gonna try to scratchbuild a bumper. To be honest, that is something that I know is gonna be time-consuming to make with all those layers, but you know what? I say bring it on. I just gotta make sure that when that’s getting made that I have clamps handy.

More to come! Thank you for reading!

Can’t wait until tomorrow.

19

Message recieved and sent to Chris, Things are being worked out with the table saw. :cool:

Be prepared we’re hoping to get alot done tomorrow Fossil! :slight_smile:

20

Right on, dude. I’m bringing my Kawasaki rotary, and these templates, as well as a little boombox I wanna dismantle for speakers… but won’t be installing them until later, when pack innards are procured.