Only registered on here the other week as i wanted to build my first pack. After a lot of research and reading through threads started to collect the parts required to build my pack.
I have gone down the route of the vac formed shell rather than the resin shell. only reason for this is cost and with it being my first attempt thought this route would be easier than build one from scratch.
Got the vacformed shell off ebay form a guy on here. Items included were the 2 parts to the shell, bumper and ion arm. also included was the tube for the booster tube.
The shell arrived to me just over a week from paying for the item.
started to trim the excess plastic off in the week measuring the pack using the plans from this site.
1 x battery pack for red and green lights on the wand
1 x battery pack for sound pack
1 x solderless breadboard for sound pack
1 x SoundBoard FX chip with 4 proton pack sounds loaded on (from replicaprops.com)
DPDT switches for lights and sounds installed onto the wand!
1 x wiring diagram to easily plug in a speaker of your choice
also in the week purchased the ribon cable off ebay. Went to pick the part up as the seller lived round the corner from me. at the same time also purchased a few more items off him that he had spare. I got the proton pack and thrower decals and the red perspex and blue perspex for the pack lights.
also ordered the resin parts for the proton pack from nick-a-tron in the week plus the cables off him.
purchased a length of plastic tube for the injectors from the power cell from my local home base (DIY shop)
Next up im getting the mother board cut. Using the plans i created a full size CAD model of the motherboard in CATIA V5 and created a dxf file of the part to give to my local laser cutter to cut it out of aluminium for me. Also sorted out the fixing brackets for the shell to the motherboard. Had a length of 90 deg angle aluminium L shape section at work which i cut up.
hopefully i get a chance to do more work on the pack durring the week. i will be updating this thread when i do more work.
Any comments and sugestions will be of help as this is my first build and this is all new to me, The plus side is i used to be a model maker and now a design engineer so have the tools and equipment at work to make things easier.
forgot to mention in the original thread that as soon as all the filler work and rubbing down has been done i will be adding a few layers of resin glass fibre to the inside of the shell to strengthen the shell up.
Managed to do a little more work on the pack last night. Cut the 50 deg angle on the booster tube and mounted that onto the pack. Fixed the booster tube on by using a few small screws, screwing from the inside so that it can be removed at any time if i need to.
did a little bit more cleaning up on the pack with filler as well.
decided to go for a MDF mother board in the end rather than aluminium. Used the pack as a guide and just marked the MDF by tracing round the pack. Hopefully will have the pack mounted onto the motherboard over the weekend.
all my resin parts turned up yesterday from nick-a-tron for the pack and the thrower, so started to clean them up a bit. Screwed the booster frame in position done this by tapping the booster tube so that it can be removed for painting or extra work to be done.
after looking through a few peoples pictures realised i have done my mother board wrong so need to remake that to today. Not a big problem as i only used mdf. I supose i will make misstakes with i being the first pack i have made.
also ordered the alice frame and straps from america. Not sure how long that will take to come but hopefully should have it in a few weeks.
also ordered a light kit for the proton pack the blue power cell lights and the red pack lights, metal ion arm. starting to get all the parts together now so hopefully should be able to get a good dtart now, will get some pics up of the progress in the next day or so and the problems with the moterboard.
wanted to stiffen up the vac formed shell to make it stronger mainly in areas where other parts would be fixed to the shell. Purchased a large resin kit from my local car shop. Included in the kit was the resin, harder, glass fibre mat, measuring jug and mixing sticks.
put a few extra layers on the gearbox side where the thrower clip is attached. Will also be fixing in a block of wood in this area as well for extra strength.
pictures showing the booster tube mounted onto the shell. The booster tube is held on using glue on the angle face of the pack. The booster tube is also screwed onto the shell using 3 size 6 self tapping screws. Received the resin parts off nick so cleaned the booster frame up and drilled the holes in the booster frame. Placing the booster frame onto the booster tube i drilled throught the frame and into the tube then tapped the holes in the tube to take a M5 cap head screw for fixing the frame to the tube.
ordered a few more parts off Nick today. Thrower hat light set and a belt gizmo resin kit.
Will update with more pics as soon as i get chance to do more work on the pack.
Few more items turned up yesterday. Received the pack light kit, ion arm assembly off JT94, also received the speaker kit and light kit i purchased off ebay. Won these items off the same person i got the thrower and sound board from.
Got lots and lots of boxes of parts now, so just need to start assembling everything.
you have one of the brackets in the wrong spot there. that one that would bolt to the top of the shell should be on the side of the area where the ion arm goes, not the top.
My ALICE frame turned up yesterday which i purchased off ebay.
The frame is the LC-2 version so is olive green at the mement so will need to paint it black.
got most of the parts now required to build the pack just need to get a few more items such as the brass elbows and straights. Will be getting them tomorrow from a place called Nuneaton hose and fittings, who are local to me and have them all in stock.
Hopefully will get some time this week to do some more work on the pack.
These are the pics from the ebay listing. I need to take everything off so i can paint the frame. Thanks for pointing it out for me for when i reassembly it.
what bolts are used for fixing it to the mother board. countersunk head bolts or cap heads and what size are they M10 or M8
Did some more work on the pack last night. Firstly changed the position of the bracket that was in the incorrect position and filled the holes up in the mother board.
started work on the ion arm. Screwed a piece of 19mm thick mdf into the bottom of the ion arm so that i had some thing to screw into as i dont want to glue it in place yet because of painting.
Also did a little more filling and rubbing down on the pack. Hopefully by the weekend i will have the N filter mounted all the holes drilled and the rest of the bits fitted ready for paint.
The ion arms are excellent. Hardly any sanding to do to clean up the bottom face. All the dimples lined up perfect for drilling the holes for attaching the resistors. Also the top face is nice and thick to drill and tap for the metal part of the ion arm to be screwed to.
All i did to it was put the wood in the bottom for screwing it to the pack.
Started off by drilling the slot out for the power cell lights the cyclotron lights and the large hole for the ribbon cable.
Mounted the injectors onto a thin piece of MDF so that i could fix them to the pack.
Added a few coats of grey primer to the injector assembly, the booster frame and a few other parts. As i could get the correct elbows i decided to paint the ones i had grey so they look more like the originals. Will post pics later of these parts as they are drying in the shed.
Started some work on the thrower. Started off by taking every apart that i had as i noticed the side block where the toggle switch and puch button goes was in the incorrect place. Removed all the switches and the wiring from the thrower.
fixed all the resin parts i got from Nick-a-tron onto the main body of the thrower.
The smaller parts were stuck on with super glue and the bigger parts were fixed with evo stick glue similar to no mor nails etc.
Using the website for reference pics and the plans think i got all the parts in the correct place. Also added the weld around the tubes to the main mody in the same way as i did before as i thought this worked really well.
Will be making the back cover today for the thrower which will be screwed on so that i can get acess to the wiring for the lights etc.
Also a few more parts turned up yesterday from Nick-a-tron. Received the thrower hat lights and also the resin parts for the belt gizmo. Had a bit extra money in the paypal acount so thought i would order it at the same time.
drilled and tapped the holes in the HGA for the four cap head bolts round the outside and the countersunk bolt in the centre. Did this the other night but forgot to post a pic.
