New build, looking for input and help. (With pictures!)

[Assoonasitis]

Hello, all! I’ve been interested in building my very own pack for years, but haven’t really been able to afford to do so. This year, all that changes; my wife and I have worked out a budget and she’s even helping and encouraging me with my project. I started thinking: what type do I want to build? The original Hero pack? How about the pack from The Real Ghostbusters? Maybe the new one, even?

The answer to that was: none of the above. I don’t want to just look like a Ghostbuster, I want to be one. And what better way than by designing my own custom pack?

Now, I know, this sounds ridiculous. Blasphemous, even, but bear with me.

I did a bit of research and found a free-to-use 3D CAD program called AutoDesk 123D Design and downloaded it and set to work deciding what I wanted my creation to look like. I plan to create a vaccuform or otherwise hollow model with most of the large features present to save costs and then I’ll add some genuine hardware to make it look spiffy without breaking the bank. I have a Raspberry Pi sitting around doing nothing noteworthy that I will try to use as a light and sound controller, even!

Now, keep in mind that these are just preliminary designs, and once I can make them up, I’ll probably be tweaking a bit.

I started with the Neutrona Wand:

That was easy. Ergonomic handle which I plan on adding finger grips to, and a little bit of The Real Ghostbusters flair thrown in.

Next, I moved onto the pack itself, which is where I got stuck. Here’s what I have so far:

What you’re seeing is the motherboard with the cyclotron mounted at the bottom-left. At the top there’s some shielding for looks; a shielded output at the bottom; and a feed for the hose off to the right. The feed is intended to wrap toward the front and have some sort of notion leading from the output to the elbow.

What I’m looking for here is some ideas on the following:

• A power cell, located at the top-right to balance out the cyclotron

A mount for the Neutrona Wand

An HGA

A CPU and control box

A crank generator

A cooling system (probably to take up most of the remaining space?)

After that, any suggestions for hardware notions that I can put on (like a ribbon cable or a clippard or whatever might make it look snazzy) would also be appreciated! So far, I plan on adding a shock mount to the centre of the cyclotron and a “window” on the curved shield section (though which I hope to have counter-clockwise rotating LEDs for show) on the pack, and the Neutrona Wand will have a momentary push button trigger, a digital display on the ignition chamber, and other small notions reminiscent of the original Hero packs.

That’s where I’m at right now. Once I finalize my design, I can start on building my project, and share the rest of the journey with everyone here. Thanks!

[Assoonasitis]

Just a quick update before I go to bed, in case anyone is interested in this. Here’s what my wife and I have come up with for the pack so far:

So there’s that so far. I added a conduit tube at the left (perhaps I’ll extend it down through the shield into the cyclotron?); a stabilizing arm on the right of the shield (just for looks); the power cell in the top-right, connected to the stabilizing arm; built out the body to the right of the cyclotron somewhat; added a little bump off the cyclotron, like the old toy proton pack has; and added a hook for the Neutrona Wand, which you can sort of see in the third picture, attached to the built-up section. I also made the outside edge of the cyclotron chamfered (which isn’t in the pictures—oops!).

Thoughts, comments, and ideas are always welcome!

[Assoonasitis]

Hey, all! After a bit of work with my wife, we’ve got what appears to be a pretty cool final design for the body. Now to hollow it out and see about printing costs. Here’s the final design:

We left some negative space on there for aesthetics, and haven’t necessarily named all the parts. The block in the top-centre is the coolant reservoir, with intake and output lines extending from the bottom (you may recognize them as the previous power feed tube); the support arm is the tube that shields the power lines running from the power cell to the cyclotron; the block at top-left will be space for an RF feedback parameter display; the tube-like thing on the right is just a giant vacuum tube, again for aesthetics.

Questions or comments are still welcome, if anybody has any!

[Assoonasitis]

So, here’s an alternate version of my final pack, plus the finalized version of the wand, ready to be sent off for 3D printing. The final pack has the motherboard and piece on the right (where the hook mounts) removed (I couldn’t figure out how to separate the right side piece from the mobo cleanly) to save cost on printing (even hollow, the motherboard is so big it’s pretty expensive), so I have that piece as a separate file where I did a hack job of cutting it off of the motherboard, then it was hollowed out using the Shell command in 123D (which lets you choose a face to remove and then hollows out the solid from there; the wand was merged into one piece with the cone removed, which I think much improves the look, and is hollow from front to back; and the hook for the wand, along with the two smaller bits of hardware up to the top-left. These are four separate STL files right now.

I used the website 3dhubs.com to find a printer near me, and it looks like I can get all four bits printed for about $90 if I don’t mind driving 20 miles to pick them up (which obviously I don’t).

Here are the images:

The wand picture is actually the STL file, hence the weird triangles. I’m looking at getting this printed in ABS plastic at 200 microns (think 720p to the 100 microns’ 1080p), because the higher resolution doubles the price.

I’m still open to input, though, since I’m not sending it off until tomorrow at least. If you have any suggestions for the body’s big details, I’d love to hear them!

As one last note: the printer I was going to use has an option to print in hot pink ABS plastic. I’ll go with black, though, no matter how my soul cries out for the pink.

[UncleSirus]

I am loving this so far! I cannot wait to see where it goes. I think with the new movie, there has been more focus on the “if this tech were real, how would it work?” and I think new packs inspired by science is very much in the spirit of GB!

[MightyAni]

I like the idea of different franchises having different designs for the proton packs. It makes the GB universe seem so much more rooted in the practices of R&D.