Yeah it IS a daunting task.. shopping for a bazillion possible parts we are nfamiliar with, and then possibly adding additional parts to replace things we can’t locate, or are unavailable.
I think I have 6 or 7 lowe’s trips under my belt now just for this stuff, not even counting other store trips.
One of the things I’ve used in the hectic run-up to halloween in the past is a substitute for the clear gun barrel. Simply go to any tobbaconists and pick up one cigar for each proton gun (i.e. you’re building two packs? buy two cigars) but make sure they are in clear plastic tubes. Should be easy to find. Heck,if I can find them in south Wales,you guys in less rural areas should have no trouble. those tubes look suprisingly accurate once you drill a hole on the one end, drill the hole the right size and you can even get the tapered edge to it. Most people know someone who smokes who will have the cigar off you if you don’t, or they make good Ray Stantz props a la Ghostbusters 2.
Also,one of my friends used a square plant pot for his gearbox/crank generator. cost him about £1 and was suprisingly accurate. The gearbox sticker and crank knob covered the holes in his, and you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding one similar. If you can’t, a thin sheet of card or plastic stuck over them will do it. A few bits of card,plastic or basswood strips and away you go!
I meant to have a screen accurate pack done by now. I’ve been assembling the costume over the year and its pretty much done. I just couldn’t get the money together to do the pack right. I decided to throw something together and was pretty bummed that it wasn’t going to be perfect but now I’m having a lot of fun with it! It’ll be a total Frankenstein but then again so was my cardboard box pack that all the kids loved when I was 8.
This picture: http://www.gbfans.com/fans/props/ghost-traps/941/3/
Trap I built in one week, in a one-bedroom apartment using an x-acto, foamboard, plastic sign, Bondo, and spray paint. Knobs from guitar store and Radioshack. Stickers printed off on my home printer.
All it requires is a little gumption and a lot of replacement blades.
Note: The pictures that come after that are months after Halloween after I had the chance to order parts from Irricanian.
If someone needs a quick n dirty cyclotron, walmart has these lunch salads that have a perfect diameter bowl. The holes would be easy to cut, and they are already black. I’d suggest doubling them up, since they are very thin plastic, and odds are, the deli section would just give you a few (or you could have some tasty salad!)
Only downside is the top is rounded, rather then being mostly square.
I went to the dollar store and found a 2-pack of those microwave plastic covers (you put them over whatever your microwaving so there wont be a mess) for a buck. I primed it, made the rings around the red reflectors out of foamies and it came out pretty nice:
Heres that blue strobe light thing that people have been using around here that you can buy at wal-mart:
For the cyclotron lighting, I bought these from k-mart:
They are battery operated with a toggle switch. I popped the ghosts off the LEDs (very easily) and taped the lights in pairs (because there were about 10):
I’m also updating my old foamboard proton packs I made back in 2005, AND making a newer one thats going to be more accurate:
Bought the pack frames from Wal-mart in the camping section (they had packs there with metal frames). I just bought an ALICE frame Monday for the newer pack in construction.
Greattttt.. now the wife wants to replace our skellie lights with the cycling ones.. happy now? 
The skeleton lights don’t cycle? What do they do? If they’re constant on, you might as well have just tossed a flashlight in the pack. 
Man, I need to pick up some of those. I have a blinking led for the gun, but I need something to stick in the pack. Those look like they would work perfectly!
They slowly color shift.. each led has 3 colors is shifts to.. it’s a pretty nifty lighting effect, but not cycling".
I picked up a set of LED skeleton lights, ripped the skeleton heads off and they flash 4 red, 3 yellow and 3 green. They’ll do the job. Through the red reflectors, they’ll all look red anyway. I’m gonna bunch them into red, green and yellow groups of three with one spare (red green yellow, red green yellow, etc…), and see how it looks. Being a RGB pack, I only have 3 lenses to deal with. It’ll work!
I need to deal with the “halloween theme though”, might have to gut it and bypass the speaker! The guts of the ghost light setup look strangely similar to what I have, except I managed to remove the led’s from their rubber holders (I grabbed the base of the LED fittings and twistedback and fourth…POP! Good and done! Wish all the LED’s were the same color, but I’ll make it work!
they do make replacement led lights now, just like th eold twinkle lights. Might depend on the manufactuerer if they work though.. plus some leds have mulitple mini leds in them, so they can color change.
Installed them today, between red flashes, it maintains a yellow/green glow the background of the lenses. I centered the red LED between the yellow and green ones so that they would act as the main color. It looks really cool! The ones I have are indeed like led christmas lights. It’s pretty close to your setup, actually. I think we got more or less the same set, except mine were skulls and yours were ghosts! Mine don’t cycle, but they flash randomly though.
In the process, I sliced my thumb open (whoops) on a sharp edge inside the pack (the joys of sheet metal). A band-aid wrapped with electrical tape fixed that leak! :vinzclortho:
Also wired the gun with a blinking red LED that runs of a 9v. It added a lot to it.
Probably going to pick up a bigger pair of coveralls, not movie accurate, but they work for me. The ones from a few years back are a bit snug!
Still need to do a bit of weathering and add some labels. I know the RGB pack didn’t really have much for labels, but I think selectvely using the movie ones will add a lot to the overall appearance!
Hmmm if they don;t actually cycle, I think I’ll stick with my target skellie lights. They were much cheaper, and I really like the “always on” slow color/brightness shifting.
Since I picked up one extra set, I think I’m also going to put some optional lights in my crank box and the box below it. One string can light both, and I can put the power box on the back of the pack. I did a quickie test, and though you don’t see much light at all, the effect you DO see is pretty cool.
Pimp my pack!
(And now I can return $25 worth of halloween lights back to kmart)
I saw some flashing lights at Super store that would work today. clear LED’s that flash in unisin. What got me was that they have reflective backings like a flash light and come in a 12 pack. Also saw skeleton lights that were all the same color that flashed as well!
I didn’t pick any up,but they’re something to look out for!
Garee, the slow shift sounds like a cool effect!
Well I’ll be, those cheap lights are easy to gut! I ripped out the circuitboard and wired in my own switch directly from the battery box to the lights. They still flash, and now It doesn’t cut out every 30 seconds or so waiting for noise or motion or whatnot. Make it work! Ironically, the power box is just the right size to cover up the access hole cut into the motherboard. I had an extra LED in the strand, so I taped it to the side of the power box as an indicator light.
Because I don’t have the time to re-do any of the things I want to do this year, I just added some movie pack labels to the thing and did a bit of weathering. Sorry about the picture quality, my digital camera is old (it takes 4 AA’s and is about the size of a brick!), and doesn’t work with the new computer, so I just used the web cam.
I’d like to add the bellows if I can find more time here and there, but I’m not going to stress out about it if I can’t get those done. I think without the bellows, the bumper looks naked!
!3 AA’s for the pack lights and a 9V for the 1 gun light. Go figure!
yeah, you can get some really good lighting options from the DOllar Store. They always have junk there with a static or flashing LED. Buy up a few of those and you’re good.
Another source was JoAnne fabrics. I was in there the other day, and they had a reflector that looked just like it belonged in the cyclotron, and it had a flashing LED. I think it was for a dogs collar or something.
Love the pack.
thumbs up
Thanks man!
I remember when I built it last year, through the gun together in a day. When I built the pack, a lot of swearing was involved. :lol:
I should have ribbed the ion arm, then it wouln’t be so out of square, lol. It bugs me.
I actually checked the dollar store for lights, but couldn’t find anything I liked. Getting the lights on a string saved a TON of headache.
That was a good idea, Mike!
Thanks Spooky! Thats just what I needed. A solid replacement for my missing RGB wand.
