So I’ve had a GB2 styled pack for about a year now and have always been bugged by the large gap I at at the top of my pack between the motherboard and the alice frame. How convenient that the GB2 semi-heros had Makita batteries placed there. Well I’ve finally gotten around to adding them to my pack and here’s how I did it.
I started by picking up a set of dead batteries on ebay.
Turns out there’s a bunch of different types and configurations of labels, if anyone cares the labels accurate to the movie are the 3 on the left in this picture as far as I can tell. I wasn’t planning on powering my pack with the Makitas which is why I went for dead batteries though it’s definitely possible to do. For weight reasons I stripped the cells out and just used the battery shells.
With battery in hand I cut a 2" long section of 1.5" PVC then took a heat gun to it:
At this point it should be said that heating PVC is mildly dangerous, it releases some nasty chemicals like Chlorine into the air that are not good to breathe. While still semi-conscious managed to wield an x-acto knife and cut a piece of styrene to cap the cup:
A little bit of putty and some spraypaint and the cup was essentially done and ready to use. However there are two batteries on the packs. Given the aforementioned problems with hot PVC I didn’t really feel like scratchbuilding another one so into a silicone bath it went:
A few days of curing and casting later and I had my raw cups:
I purposefully cast them a little high so the cap would end up thicker. A bit of work with a sanding drum and some spray paint and the cups were done. I bent some scrap steel to make the holding bracket and cut some MDF and plastic for the base plate.
