Hi, I´ve been going over this in my head, I plan to build a proton pack and I´ve been trying to figure out a way to get it hooked up with lights, sound fx and movie themes.
My first plan was to get the mattel wand since it has a soundboard and hook that up to an amplifier and speaker in the proton pack I would like to know if that would work ? Has anyone done it.
Or would it be better to get sound and light kit and build the wand my self and wire it up with soundboards and lights.
Thanks
The Matty wand provides some instant gratification, if perhaps a bit fleeting. You open the box, the sounds and lights are neat and it’s pretty good for what it is. But you soon realize it could be a lot better and your investment might have been better spent building your own.
Here’s the thing. Some people don’t have the time, energy or desire to build their own and the Matty fills the role pretty well and quickly. I needed something fast and the Matty worked out fine. In my case, it inspired me to build my own pack & wand and now I have a new, much needed, hobby. The Matty gets a lot of flack for being a toy but if it brings people into this world, you gotta appreciate that.
Modding the Matty has been done but it doesn’t look easy… look here… and in the end you will probably be happier with a wand you build yourself.
This, I have a Matty wand on the way to me in the mail, but I’ll be ordering the sound and lights kits form GBFans when they get back in stock next month.
Well the mattle wand looks good and could be modded and hacked. It would save me time not having to build it so I could concentrate on the protonpack instead. From the videos from Alex Low where he is modding the wand it the soundboard in the wand sees to deliver a nice sound/fx to a better amp and speaker.
To be totally honest, the wand really isn’t that hard. Get a ThrowingChicken kit, it comes almost complete. There’s even little resin hat lights!
I look at it this way: if you’re going to go through all of the trouble of building a pack why use a toy for the part you’ll be handling the most? I can understand if you already had the wand and are using it while you saving up for a real wand, like Bishop said above but for the price as the Matty wand you could get ThrowingChickens resin Wand kit here: Proton Gun Kit / Particle Thrower version 3H - For Sale - GBFans.com
You’ll need a light kit for the pack anyway might as well get the GBFans wand lights and sound kit as well since they easily connect together. That will give you more options as well since the GBFans kit does video game sounds as well as use quotes from the movie, should you wish to use them. I also imagine a standard pack sound setup would sound much better than the Matty wand does as well. Of course all of this adds more cost so it depends on your budget. I would build a wand but that’s just me.
You can always upgrade throwers down the road! That’s my thought process anyway. In all honesty, it’s what pushed me towards building a(nother) pack in the first place. :mrgreen:
That being said, if you don’t have it don’t use it, and if you have it, use it; if you decide to upgrade down the road, do it!
That’s the road I’m taking. I have a Matty wand coming in the mail(should be in my hands tomorrow) and I’m going to use it until I can afford an aluminum thrower.
I´ve been looking at the Throwingchicken wand and it looks amazing and with my skills in prop making it would be a breeze for me building one, and it looks more sturdy that the mattle wand.
So I put in an order for a Kit from Throwingchicken.
So the next thing is sound and lights 
You have chosen well, my friend.
Me personally, I ordered the mattel wand before I even had an idea of building a pack. From there I decided " hmmm whats a wand without a pack?" So im focusing all my energy into building my pack, im using the matty wand this go around. I figure the sound might not be the GREATEST but itll be a wow factor for the time being. Im using my first build as a learnig experience for when I build a resin pack. So I got the sc shell, which for a beginner pack builder is VERY suitable. I bought CRIX pack light kit for the WOW factor on the pack. It also gives me the flexibility to add his sound kit in the future. When I DO decide to buld the wand I will be ordering throwingchickens wand kit, ill order crix’s want lightkit, and soundboard and hook it all up. Which when I build a full resin kit, I will probably recycle all 3 kits from the sc shell to the resin kit, and leave the sc shell as more of a show pack and /or wall decoration.
And what´s a wand without a pack
Through my costuming I´ve always gone the cheaper road at first. I remember getting a cheaper Boba Fett helmet at start, was never happy with it and ended up getting more accurate and more expensive one. Also I went through 3 vader helmets, I always tought, well I will get the cheaper one and mod it and make it look good. Well in the end I got a more expensive one. And always in the long run it ended up costing me more money in the long run trying to save a buck and also time.
So I´m gonna leave the Mattle wand idea and go full in.
But on the soundboard and Light, I´ve been thinking about the Heavy Props kit. I´ve also seen the boards that they sell on this forum. What would you guys recommend.
If all possible I would like a soundkit that can deliver all the FX for the wand and the pack and alos play a few theme songs, not just one theme song.
Oh I hear ya on the cost. I know itll come out more expensive in the long run. BUT id rather my trial and error be on a less expensive abs shell than an expensive resin shell. Like a said its a great shell for beginners. Granted before starting I thought I was gonna totally screw up. But now a part of me wishes I sprang for the resin shell. No worries though. As I said, in the future I will.
As for kits, I like crix’s kits. Not to mention, in the gb shop ya gotta snatchem up when the restock or youll miss them. Crix almost always has a supply. And I do believe, or could have sworn that you could upload songs to an sd card for the sound board. But dont quote me on that. The way I see it now is, proton packs are just giant, beautiful, expensive mp3 players lol
I only have experience with the GBFans sound & lights kit. It’s a very nice all-in-one solution with a built-in amplifier. As for additional songs, it has an audio input jack, so you can simply plug an MP3 player and crank whatever tunes you like. Good stuff!
Now it´s waiting time for the ThrowingChicken Kit.
Can´t wait to get started on another project, it´s been to long.