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By mburkit
#419963
As many of you may know, I created a mold to construct a GBTVG proton pack. Part of that molding process was creating a movie shell mold to then cast a shell from and modify into the game shell I will be using in this thread: http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... =2&t=26312

Well, one of the by products of that project was a movie shell mold.

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From that mold, I pulled a shell for myself and took a giant leap into a journey I have been on since 2003: to create a proton pack as close as humanly possible to the hero packs of "Ghost Busters". And so we begin this leg of our Journey. . .

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For those with a keen eye, the mold was made from a Bigi330 shell, that I had permission to cast for personal use as well as to help in creating my eventual game shell (neither shells will ever be for sale). I had modified a few things on the master before casting, but as I began working on the build, and compared it to my reference, the need to modify more parts of the shell became apparent. Some of these things were the size and placement of some of the predetermined holes on the shell, as well as the size of some of its structures; in particular, the gun mount box had to be extended in length from 4" to 4.25" to accommodate the accurate sized V-hook and spacer. So you will see things change on the shell as I move forward through my little story.

Some of those changes, you can see in this photo:
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I removed the cast in N-Filter, and increased the size of the top cyclotron rings and cut the rings to the same 1 3/8" ID as the Sony Lobby Hero pack. I also filled in the powercell window and recut it to the accurate size.

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Now, it was time to start mounting the parts I've been collecting for this pack since 2003. But I didn't want just a generic GB1 pack, I wanted to replicate a particular pack.

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I decided to build the OMNI pack. The OMNI pack in particular has a few defining features to its construction, including the use of 2 sage resistors on the ion arm as well as the characteristic twist to the ribbon cable. Because I don't have a TON of reference of this particular pack, I idealized its construction as an amalgamation of 3 sources of reference: the GB1 montage OMNI magazine image, reference of the hero pack on display at Sony, as well as the Minnesota or "Murray" pack.

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Here's a shot of the parts I had up until this time, dry-fitted on the shell before I began the painting process. I even cut my own aluminum motherboard for this build.

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(I just always liked this photo, because it was right before I began painting)

I even got the Booster Tube and Ion Arm welded together!
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Sitting at my uncle's shop, waiting to be welded up.
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Here she is just chilling in the back seat of my Jetta after I picked her up.

That brings me to where the shell is now.
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Once I'm done with my build, I will show some of the finer details of the pack half of the build.

Now onto the wand that you see here and there in photos.

Its another piece of work that is an amalgamation of alot of different sources. The gun body is a reject gun from Vincenzo, with metal parts from Jimbo7, Nosllit, and ChapterMasterTu'Shan.

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My pride and joy of this wand though is front handle so far:
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I feel I have the front handle pretty much figured out now, between dimensions and functionality, so I'm excited to get this part of the build completed. I'm still waiting on some gun ears and a grip lock, so I can get them welded on there, and I can finally start painting the wand up so the pack isn't so lonely.

That's basically over a year's worth of work, crammed into one very large post. I will be making my own custom incandescent electronics for this build, so stay tuned!

Thanks for looking!
Kingpin, alphabeta001 liked this
User avatar
By Michael Scott
#419980
Looks awesome. Did you have any trouble fitting the aluminum N-Filter in the hole you cut? The picture with the hole in the shell looks a bit rough, but the others with the aluminum part fitted look like it was a perfectly snug fit.
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By FeinDTacticS
#420014
Sick build. Doing those throwers out of alloy really makes me just want to build seperate thrower out of alloy for the pure fun of owning it.
User avatar
By mburkit
#420413
Michael Scott wrote:Looks awesome. Did you have any trouble fitting the aluminum N-Filter in the hole you cut? The picture with the hole in the shell looks a bit rough, but the others with the aluminum part fitted look like it was a perfectly snug fit.
Nope, I cut the aluminum N-filter to the shape of the shell, just like the real ones, so it fits perfectly.

Thanks guys for the comments, I've been working on this thing for a very long time now, and its honestly no where near done. With it becoming too cold to do any more painting, I'm most likely going to start on the electronics. They are going to be incandescent and as analog as I can possibly get them. I may cheat a little and use an arduino for the bargraph just because of how I want it to function. But we'll see once I cross that bridge. I feel what I'm going to be doing under the hood will really set this pack apart.
By BlkMesaHero
#420738
Sexy, that is all I have to say.
User avatar
By mburkit
#430056
Very small update:

Since I am retiring my previous pack that was done up like the Stantz pack seen in the Sedgwick scenes in GB1, I have decided to change this pack over from the OMNI pack to Stantz's pack.

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I kinda wanted to do this for several reasons: first off, I accidently mounted the clippard L-Fitting on the HGA wrong for the OMNI pack, this pack is a straight fiberglass pull so I could rub the paint off the tops of 2 of the powercell ribs and let the light shine through, and I have a new shell that will be built into the OMNI pack, which will eventually get a thread once I move farther along with that build. Here's a teaser photo of the new OMNI build. . .

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Its one of the shells from the HMS project that several people now (some more notorious then others) sell in the community. Its not from Venky or Videobob, but I purchased it used from another member of the community. I've done some heavy modifications to it to make it closer to the actual shells used for the hero packs in GB1. Look forward to a new thread for this build then.
jackdoud, gEkX liked this
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By Kingpin
#430077
Crikey, I knew some people had remarked on how deformed the Cyclotron was on some of those HMS shells... but I had no idea of the actual extent of it.

Hopefully adding the N-Filter will improve the visuals of it. Goodluck with the new build, Matt.
By rays_occult
#431141
If I can get my pack build anywhere near as good as your Stantz pack then I'll be a happy man. Incredible. Looking forward to watch the new omni build unfold too!
User avatar
By mburkit
#436150
So I have an update for this pack! I'm trying to get it done for the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Boston this year, which only gives me 3 weeks to finish it up. My friends and I have been working on our own proton pack lights designs over the last 2 months and I decided to place the prototype boards inside this pack.

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I kinda wanted to take some of the design for the brackets as seen in the Hero pack. I have 2 brackets I made from 1/32" aluminum that everything is mounted on.

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As you can see in this picture, its a snug fit for everything, between the battery, that speaker and all the light boards on top. But it fits, I swear. I also have a switch plate from Mr. noslliT on the motherboard, where my kill switch and recharge port is for the battery.

And with everything sealed up, you have this:



Now with the pack all buttoned up, I can focus on the wand.
ChapterMasterTu'Shan, jackdoud, gEkX and 4 others liked this
By Alex Newborn
#436154
I love the detail of the Stantz 'lights' coming through the fiberglass. Great tribute, great execution!


Alex
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By julz
#436254
Love it dude!

Great work on the interior speaker/electronics mount! I might have to borrow that ;)
User avatar
By mburkit
#436271
If you think that looks awesome, just wait until you see the inside of my finished thrower. There will be more aluminum brackets and wires going everywhere and a popping mechanism for the clear tube. I'm hoping all that will be done within the week.
User avatar
By mburkit
#436328
Well, all the electronics are installed in my thrower. I probably won't do a video or any other photos until the popping mechanism and front handle are on the sucker. BUT since we are on the theme of "interior" shots, I figured I'd share this shot of the inside of my wand minus the popping mechanism.

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