Okay, so I’ve annoyed a few of you with daft questions on how to build various bits for the pack. I figured now was about right, after having put most of it together, to show what I’ve gotten up to. It’s not great, it’s not too accurate, but it’s mine.
Various things of note: she’s cheap. She’s made primarily from a little MDF and some plastic food containers. Two crisp tubes have kindly donated themselves to be the N-Filter and the Booster Pack. The gun box in the photos is a little bit out of position, and I’ve still to cut the rods for the ion arm. I’m awaiting my friend who’s doing the electronics for me (which will be housed in the black box on top of the EDA). The wires will run down into the EDA, go along to the Power Cell and also down the hose which connects the spacer section to the EDA (not pictured). From there, the cables will run to the cyclotron and then down the gun hose to the gun itself.
I’ve got two different types of ribbon cable; a bog standard 32-pin grey one and an 8-pin rainbow one I managed to scrounge from uni. I’ll just tie them both together after the pack’s been painted.
Since you aren’t going for an accurate build, something to consider is how you are going to attach all this stuff together, without it falling off.
Check Bradster’s thread here for his dollar store pack.. there might be useful tips there, but I’d say gorilla glue might be your best bet.
Also, many of the accurate packs have pvc pipe, with is dirt cheap, and you could use that instead of some of your bottles or whatnots. You can screw a dowel rod in whatever your motherboard is, and fasten them securely easily.. and they’ll probably stay on much better then some of your current options.
You could probably spend $4 for pvc pipe for your entire build.
Liquid nails man, especially if you’re unconcerned with gaining access into anything. You liquid nail every last part of that pack together, it wont fall apart.
Yep.. BUT kep in mind you want the GOOD more expensive liquid nails, not the cheaper stuff. Also, liquid nails does take a few days to get harder, I think. I found items I’d glued with it a month later that were still pulling off from stress.. its kind of like thick peanut butter at that point, so I could just press them back twhere they belong. Now, a year later, its all rock solid.
Gorilla glue is another option, it gets rock hard in just a few hours, but you have to anticipate it’s expansion.
Use smaller amounts of it then you think you need for success, and weigh down anything that might separate during curing.
If you can screw something down to the motherboard, by all means do so!
