[Prettyfloralbonnet]

Hello,

I found out I had been approved for an electronics panel for a con over Halloween. I thought it would be a good idea to try my hand at a "cheap" electronics solution and finally get around to some sort of proton pack. Long story short...my original amp and sound solutions failed and the more I worked on it the more detail I tried to fit into it the night of the con.


First, the sound and power options I had wanted to try: I used a USB 300 second programmable soundboard, a 7 watt amp from the same site, and the two 8 ohm speakers that are frequently mentioned. Unfortunately, the amp caused some terrible feedback and static issues and the soundboard didn't produce high quality sounds.
At some point, the soundboard ceased to work at all and I had to give up the idea of a cheap electronics solution and by a HeavyProps kit and ck153 7 watt amp.



I used both Stefan Otto and Norm Gagnon's plans as those were the first I found.

Motherboard cut from 1/8" mdf:


I bought some cheap foam from Harbor Freight and it ended up having some severe holes and defects. Figuring it would be an ideal time to try out paintable caulking, I attempted to fill holes and seams on the cyclotron:


The goal was to go cheap and fast so I tried to stick with foam where possible and pvc everywhere else:


The gearbox was next and instead of waiting hours for the silicone to cure I tried mod podge. Unfortunately, mine appeared to have been left slightly unsealed so it went on thick and wouldn't wet-sand very well. For that one part I also used gesso:


I was perhaps a week and a half from my deadline and started cranking out parts as best as I could (booster, power cell, gun mount, etc):


In between waiting for contact adhesive to set, mod podge and silicone to dry, I built the thrower. I tried bicycle grips not realizing they were too small for the pvc I used and ended up sanding down eva foam for the grips. The gun was made of basswood, some extra sintra I had lying around and random other parts:


By the end of the day Sunday, less than a week from Halloween, I realized I didn't have time for the paint job I'd wanted so I had to settle with Plastidip and a bit more mod podge where possible to smooth out some areas:


Here it is at work on Halloween (the electronics panel would be that evening) and attached the the ALICE frame I'd found online. The stickers were printed on the least adhesive sticker paper we had and I didn't have time for tubes or wires:


Here I am wearing it the day after Halloween, still no wires, hoses or cables and no weathering. I did get the electronics to work, more on that when I have more time to post:

[jason407]

Looking good...mine is foam and styrene as well!

[DarkSpectre]

I've also built a pack and thrower from foam. Working on an RGB one next! Great Work!

[Lewis Tully]

Definitely a great looking pack! Once you get all the greeblies and weathering on there it is going to look fantastic! I am often skeptical when I see threads titled "Foam build" because they usually end up covered in duct tape, but you have done a great job here, and for what seems like a very reasonable price. And the weight issue is something you can't beat with a stick!

[Prettyfloralbonnet]

Thanks guys... Jason407 and DarkSpectre, wish I had dug a little deeper to find your foam builds as they would've been quite helpful. How did you guys go about mounting it to the motherboard and some of the electronics inside it? I'm currently having some issues with the mdf being too flexible and the electronics kind of get stuffed in crevices when I put the foam shell back on (after switching on the battery pack).

Lewis, the pack was light-weight right up until I decided I needed separate 12v power supplies for the amp and lights.

Here's the sound, light and switch test:


I had some issues just prior to this where the cylcotron lights would flicker, presumably being interfered with the other timer circuits that I used for the thrower and power cell.

[jason407]

I mounted the speaker and sound board to the motherboard, and the rest is mounted to the inside of the foam wherever it had a spot. I used industrial Velcro for mounting and it works great!
I used thin plywood instead of mdf, so don't have flex issues.
For mounting, I just have the normal 4 brackets like most people, but added some Velcro in places to help hold the foam to the motherboard.

[joeghostbuster]

FANTASTIC!

[DarkSpectre]

http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... =2&t=36813

Here's my build. Mt foam build was mostly an experiment to see if i could make a wearable functional pack out of foam. The lights are solid state but overall this was a fun build

[Prettyfloralbonnet]

Glad to see some other foam builds that turned out well. In my rush to find references I'd only originally found one off-site. I'll post an updated picture of my pack with all of it's hoses and the little bit of weathering I've done in the next couple of days.

[Prettyfloralbonnet]

Inside of the pack as I was trying to stuff everything back in. Unfortunately, the cyclotron lights went all weird on me again (they strangely work with a 9v battery instead of the 8 pack which was the other way around the last time).



This is about as finished as this is going to get. I'm missing the control knob, a couple socket head screws and two short hoses. I did some metallic silver dry brushing which is too subtle to show up on a phone camera.

[jason407]

Looks great! Your inside is a little cleaner and roomier than mine.
Is that black box a battery? If so, I had trouble with one of those and my cyc lights as well...it was putting out too much voltage.

[Prettyfloralbonnet]

The bigger black box is supposed to be a 6800 mAh CCTV rechargeable battery, used only for the amp. I use the 8xAA battery pack for all of my lights. My power cell uses the Bakatronics LED kit, the cyclotron and inaccurate thrower led bar graph are my own 555+4017 chaser circuits. I'm no electronics expert so I have no idea why the cyclotron lights flicker instead of flash on the AA's vs the 9v and why it worked just fine previously. I planned on making a discrete circuit for the cyclotron lights then properly hooking up the three separate circuits to the power suppy instead of plugging it all on the same protoboard.

[TheWug]

What kind of tools did you use to cut these shapes? I did a RGB pack years ago with the help of my father but I really wanted to do this on my own this time.

[Prettyfloralbonnet]

I now only use a retractable break away knife and a sharpening stone for all my foam. Everything gets clean cut in one pass, no sanding or cleanup required.

[Gozerhead]

I'd be interested in trying to do a foam pack as a first build. I am wondering the best way to plan the build. Did you take dimension off of the plans on this site to get an idea? Thanks!