Proton Packs

For Halloween 2008 a friend and I had plans to attend a Halloween block party in downtown Fort Lauderdale, this was a last minute decision and by the time we decided to attend dressed as the Ghostbusters we had only 2 weeks to get things in order.

We started by ordering 2 flight suits, some no-ghost logo patch's, and found an eBay seller who made name patches. The suits cost us about $30 dollars a piece. Once the suits were ordered and on there way we went to two of my favorite stores Home depot, and Radio Shack.

At Home Depot we each Grabbed a Piece of .5" thick Plexi glass at 3'x2', a wall switch box, a large metal strap, a plastic planter water tray, and a conduit 90 degree angle connector. We split the cost of 2' of 1" metal conduit, 1" foam pipe insulation, and 12' of 1"PVC, a can of neon yellow, and a can of black spray-paint for plastic. Total cost 25$ each. Next we stopped at Radio Shack there we each picked up a covered toggle switch, a pack of assorted LED's, some 9V battery terminals, some 9V batteries, 2 project boxes (a large and a smaller one) 1 incandescent indicator lamp, and a pack of blinking LED’s. Total cost for the packs about $35.

I feel that I should mention that while I did give this project a few days consideration to determine what parts I was going to use, for the most part I was building these packs in my head while roaming the isles of the stores, while I usually have a parts list, or a plan sketched out before hand I wasn’t sure what parts I was going to use for certain until I saw them in person due to the uniqueness of this build.

After doing some research for reference pictures, I decided to keep things simple and base these proton packs on the Ghostbusters Cartoon pack and not the Movie Ghostbusters pack which would have taken way to much time to build from scratch. So I downloaded an episode of the old cartoon which furnished me with all the reference pics I needed as well as an idea of how to light these. However I did take some major liberties in the final design.

For the proton gun I cut a 1" hole on both ends of the smaller project box for a 3' length of PVC. I happened to have 2 identical brass hose fittings that I glued to the front of the gun, it looked great! Then I cut the foam pipe insulation and zip tied it to the PVC using just a bit of glue to hold it on, I spread the zip ties out so they combined with the foam to simulate a padded grip. I then took a computer Molex power cable glued it to the side of the gun and wrapped it along the barrel of the gun; it was glued into place in a hole in the brass fitting at the front of the gun. I placed the covered toggle inline with the incandescent lamp on top of the project box, with a battery powering both lights hidden inside the project box. The proton gun was attached to the pack with a computer power cord.

For the proton pack my friend Vince had 2 identical backpacks and a water bottle that was going to work really well for the large yellow cylinder on the pack, I also had some computer parts (bay covers, fan speed control knobs, circuit boards, ect) as well as some caps from these huge paper rolls we get at work (which we usually just toss in the trash, I use them to set things off the ground.) I also had some weight room floor mats that I bought for my fish tank to place beneath the sump so that it wouldn’t generate noise from vibration; that I used to back the Plexiglas, and act as padding. Vince helped me space the 3 holes on the planter water tray evenly and drilled the holes. I used translucent water bottle caps with a red LED behind them to fill in the holes in the water tray, a single green LED on the left where the circuit board would go, a yellow LED in the paper roll cap on the right, a red and green light in the project box, and I placed the blinking LED (that controlled the LEDS in the water tray) on top of the project box next to the main power switch; with some bits I had around to make it look like a warning light. I also had 2 blue neon light bars that I threw in on the left side for added visual appeal. The battery, and the inverter for the neon lamp are located inside the project box, its cover is held on by screws so it was a logical spot. Once I determined the Electrical layout and ran all of the wiring in the pack, I glued on the foam mat, project box, wall switch box, planter water tray, the various bits of computer hardware and the paper roll cap.

I taped off anything I didn’t want black, and after a quick once over with some sand paper to scuff up the surfaces I put on the first of 9 very light coats of black paint applied over 2 days followed by a heaver final coat. The 3rd day I taped off the halved water bottle from the rest of the pack, and I started the first of 17 misted coats. This took only one day to dry fully.

Then we attached the backpack straps. Vince had cut out the straps and the entire back of the backpack, so after a quick trip to home depot for mounting hardware; two sets of 2 washers and a wood brace with teeth, some pre-drilling and some self tapping screws dipped in epoxy the straps were firmly attached.

Up until this point I was avoiding solving a problem, how do I attach the proton gun to the pack? Then one night it hit me like a ton of bricks! I would use the belt clips from some old tape measures, and put that on the gun, and it would attach to a deadbolt frame for a door jam mounted to the side of the project box on the pack. When I tried it worked brilliantly! It stayed on, and was easy to pull off and replace with out looking after 5 minutes of practice.

At this Point it was Halloween Day and I had only one detail left to complete the packs... the warning labels. The proto packs in the movies, cartoon, and the fan built ones are covered in warning labels. Luckily when I was doing my initial research I found dome labels to download and print out which would work perfectly. I bought some sticker paper at office depot, brought them to work and printed them on the laser printer, they looked FANTASTIC! Vince met me at the office that evening and we cut out the labels with exacto knives, after a brief debate about what looked better where; the labels were affixed and the packs officially complete, we were now off to the party.

I wish I had asked people to take pictures on my camera as well because when we showed up on Himarshe Street we spent the first 40 minutes being propositioned to pose with people for photos. We got allot of compliments that evening, Including one from a shop teacher who said "I just want you guys to know, im a high school shop teacher...you both get an A+"

This was a fun build, and hopefully I have an excuse to use this pack again. Its one of the projects I’m most proud of.

PS. I built a PKE meter which you can see in a few of the pics, but it wasn’t a priority and therefore not documented. I built it last minute the night before Halloween while I was watching paint dry "literally".