I was curious how other people’s packs have been damaged this season (or even during other times like conventions) and how you’ve dealt with it.
This is my 2nd year with the pack. I went to remove it from the display stand and the gun fell off, breaking the resin heat sink, scratching the acrylic tube and as I discovered much later damaging my milliput repair (see my Anovos build thread for details). Luckily the milliput, which holds the front end on, is still mostly in tact and only wiggles a little. I didn’t even notice until the next day. The heat sink I glued together temporarily, but will replace with the gbfans aluminum one. I also ordered the gbfans gun mount. The Anovos one has always been loose.
As if all this wasn’t enough, as I freaked out and went to inspect the damage to the gun, I leaned the pack on the nearby couch and snapped off the ion arm rod. The break was clean at the threads. I drilled into the rest of the rod and the threads which remained in the ion arm and inserted a cut off screw. The screw cut it’s own threads, and I backed that up with some loctite construction adhesive.
All in all, it was presentable for trick or treat and nobody but me would have noticed anything was off.
I took mine out to the pub for a costume contest (from which I won a nice $75 gift card), but ended up walking out with a lot of damage. First of all my friend wanted to hold the proton wand, and when attempting to force it off the v-hook broke the Miliput weld and detached the back grip. Luckily Miliput seems to break clean at the weld seam, and with a little super glue I was able to re-set it and patch up a tiny chunk that flew off. This seems like something that was bound to happen sooner or later as I relied on the Miliput as an epoxy for holding the handle to the gun body and little else. I added some super glue and Miliput inside the body as well this time and that should hopefully hold it a bit more firm.
The back grip had the tiniest bit of glue holding it onto the handle so I laid it on thick this time, and around the two screws set into the grip piece.
The Miliput weld holding the trigger box onto the gun body also failed in the same manner, but this is a win since it was a clean break and with a little paint you can’t tell. I now have easy access to the switches in the trigger box should they fail (see the tape under putty method from the throwing chicken builds) as before I assume they were just kind of stuck in there and I’d have to do some heavy sawing to replace them if I ever needed to.
Another win was the glue or whatever holding my front handle to the metal cylinder failed but now I have an easy rotating handle! Yay!
The N-filter also decided it has enough and plopped off. This was due to a use of hot glue only to keep it firm to the base of the proton pack which failed pretty easily. Healthy dose of super glue again should keep it in place.
Grey Clippard valve disconnected from HGA (superglue).
The 3d printed clip that holds the yellow catheter tube to the belt also broke (contacted Ecto Labs for a replacement).
Last but not least a strap broke on my Alice frame as I was attempting to wear it when claiming my prize. Figured at that point it was best to call it a night.
After a day of fussing with it the pack is back up and running, better and stronger than ever! Though everything definately got a nice once over to make sure nothing else wants to go wrong.
I smacked my wand tip against a metal bar whilst unholstering it tonight, only seem to have dislodged the trigger tip set screw thankfully, so the trigger tip is a bit loose. I’ll take a look at that this week and should be able to fix it easy enough.
One of my alice straps came undone at the top when I was putting the pack back on, luckily my wife was helping me get the pack on and supporting it so it didn’t crash to the floor. Threw some safety pins on so it didn’t do it again, but think I might sew them for some added safety now.
Congrats on the gift card! Sucks about the damage.
My milliput failed in basically the same way and I’m debating how to fix it. My wand arrived from Anovos with the front of the gun box broken, so I replaced it with an aluminum tube. There is milliput on the front and back. It’s only a little loose.. I’m just not sure how to go about fixing it right now. I feel like if I could maybe drill into it from inside the gun box and inject super glue somehow that may work.
Ooof, yeah that’s a nasty one. I’m not too sure how the Anovos ones go together from the inside, but if there is any way to secure it from the inside with a small bolt that would give you that extra security you need. Otherwise super glue so far seems to be the way to go. There are pieces on my proton pack that are only super glued down while other are screwed in, and the ones with glue only have held up surprisingly well!
To fix the weld I put glue underneath the broken seam and around the wand handle opening of the gun body, wait for it to set, then patched any holes/gaps with glue then miliput, and painted it to finish. For the inside of my TC wand I put two globs of Miliput down around the edges of the aluminum tube and walls of the inside gun. I waited for it to harden and then coated it with the glue.
Good call on replacing the original with a real aluminum piece. That would have been my call as well.
Miliput seems to break pretty easily with a moderate amount of pressure so whatever extra oomph you can give whatever it’s attached to to not be able jolt or rattle the better.
