I’ve built a few junk packs in the past, and started work on a pretty decent foam core pack that I never finished, so this marks the first proton pack I’ve worked on in my new age of building. It started with one of the new shells Java was prototyping. It needed a bit of work when I got it, in addition to it getting broken in several places during shipping. I didn’t take many photos of its original condition, but the first few might give you an idea of the starting point.
I know it looks rough, but I think Java’s method has potential and I hope he has kept it up, trying to perfect it.
The first step was patching, filling, sanding and priming / repeat.
I couldn’t find a resin bumper, so I went out on making my own.
Tacked the cut outs together with a little super glue so I could sand them to the same size.
A little MDF sandwiched in the middle.
The curved areas were made by laying a thin piece of lubricated plastic over the top of the MDF, then filling the back side with resin.
I left the back kind of ugly since it won’t really be seen anyway.
MDF layered up for the Ion Arm.
Didn’t feel much like buying a pre-made Ion Arm Assembly, nor did I want to try cutting one out of a metal bar, so I went working on a veneer.
Same principal was applied to the cable clamp.
I used a smaller-than-accurate tube for my N-Filter, but I don’t mind it so much. After drilling the holes, I used buffer wheels to act as the filters.
Here is my battery set up inside of the pack. These 7 D-Cells supposedly carry a 10,000 capacity and together produce 8.4 volts. After powering the batteries once and letting them run, they have thus far been powering my pack for over 25 hours. I am going to let them go until they run out to see how long they last me. I’ve been told that these particular batteries take a few charges and de-charges until they start to work at full capacity, so whatever the performance is with this test may not even truly show how long these things can last.
Here is how it looks on the back of my pack. The switch is to cut off the current from the batteries to the lights so I can charge them without worrying about the charger doing something to the circuits. The computer cable was spliced together with the batteries and battery thermometer, with the male adapter spliced with the charger for easy proton charging.
And done:
It’s not small, it’s average!
. You really deserve it!