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By bishopdonmiguel
#4921817
Fitzhume wrote:Didn't you do something similar with your build but used magnets in the tube and in the pack?
Not really. I used a step but to cut a loom sized hole in the gearbox. I did use magnets to secure. With yours being half solid, figured you’d not want to bore through it.
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By Fitzhume
#4921818
alleyradb wrote: August 3rd, 2019, 2:09 pm I purchased a kit from Ben last year and was a bit apprehensive about drilling that gearbox hole, as well.

I ended up using a 1” drill hole punch attachment — the same one to drill for your loom that connects to your wand. I ended up securing it to a hand bit-driver and hand-cranked the punch. It was a lot of elbow grease, but it was gentle on the pack. (Lots of horror stories of people drilling too deeply and cracking their shell or making a hole!)

Once I got that in about an inch or two, I could see the cut I was making from the inside of the pack. From there I used my dremel to cut (gently!) into the hole punch cut.

I hope that made sense. The loom didn’t need any dowels or magnets or anything to sit in there nicely. I ended up just gorilla gluing the loom on the inside along with a zip tie to prevent it from back out, should the glue fail.

Hope this helps! Worst case scenario: bondo and some sanding!
Thanks for the reply. I will look into this too.
User avatar
By Fitzhume
#4921851
alleyradb wrote: August 3rd, 2019, 2:09 pm I purchased a kit from Ben last year and was a bit apprehensive about drilling that gearbox hole, as well.

I ended up using a 1” drill hole punch attachment — the same one to drill for your loom that connects to your wand. I ended up securing it to a hand bit-driver and hand-cranked the punch. It was a lot of elbow grease, but it was gentle on the pack. (Lots of horror stories of people drilling too deeply and cracking their shell or making a hole!)

Once I got that in about an inch or two, I could see the cut I was making from the inside of the pack. From there I used my dremel to cut (gently!) into the hole punch cut.

I hope that made sense. The loom didn’t need any dowels or magnets or anything to sit in there nicely. I ended up just gorilla gluing the loom on the inside along with a zip tie to prevent it from back out, should the glue fail.

Hope this helps! Worst case scenario: bondo and some sanding!
I hope to stay away from having to repair anything as I'm still apprehensive to make any huge change to the plan. Thanks for the information!
By alleyradb
#4921856
I recommend finding a washer that is the diameter of the beam line cylinder and using that as a template for your hole. You should have about 1/8” around the perimeter where the loom is inserted into the gearbox.

Mark the washer hole and then use that hole saw. There’s a screw tip on the one I purchased that made for easy centering.

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I bought that at OSH, but Home Depot and ACE carry them as well. I think I was maybe $10. You’ll also need a 3/4” hole saw for your ribbon cable hole — save yourself a return trip to the hardware store and buy both simultaneously!
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By Fitzhume
#4921882
starburst wrote: August 4th, 2019, 9:01 am When you tackle it some photos would be great as this is something (fingers crossed) I’m going to be looking at soon!
I wish I would have seen this beforehand. I've opened that area of the pack already without these tools. I used a small drill bit in the center and then would open it further with the next biggest one and so on. Once it was bit enough, I used a Dremel and worked the rest out slowly until I could get the loom in. Since the curve of the gearbox is not hollow, I had to keep in mind what others had happened to them and not Dremel through the shell. Taking my time was a huge factor in this. I'll get a picture up soon as the primer is drying on the pack and parts at the moment. I haven't documented this as well as others have. I need to change that moving forward and share as much as possible. Everyone here has been so helpful so far and I want to be able to give back as well in the future. Since the loom has to bend rather quickly out of the gearbox, I may use a short dowel in the line and Bondo it solid in the pack.

How long is this hose line supposed to be from tube to gearbox?
User avatar
By Fitzhume
#4922057
These were taken two days ago as I'm still priming and getting a base before taping up my pack to paint.

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Using a satin finish on the metal parts first and will be giving a second coat tonight after work. The rest of the parts will get the same paint as well.

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With the ion arm, I took inspiration from bishop and used a similar technique when painting it. I allowed some of the bar to get paint on it. While using gloves, I then smeared the paint with my gloved hand until it became sticky. This was a great idea and thanks for sharing this. I like the way that it is looking.

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As for the lenses for the cyclotron, I'm still in debate with myself to use a Dremel or orbital sander to shrink the size of these lenses down to fit the holes. These lenses are the ones that I have purchased from Spongeface with his TVG board.
The washer seen in the picture is a perfect snug fit in the holes of the pack. I am going to attempt to make them smaller so I don't have to attempt a technique to widen the recessed hole in the pack which I am not comfortable in doing.

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Next up will be to paint the parts of the pack and prep the pack for a coat of truck bed liner paint. I like the look that others have used in the past so I'm going to test it on something else first to see if it's worth doing. Otherwise, I'll be taping the pack tonight to be painted so I can focus on the booster tube and Ion block installation on the pack. This will be my first use of Bondo on the pack. I have to start somewhere as I will need to use it on the wand too when I get to it. Just thinking about it, my mind is starting to drift to all of the other things to do in the future for this pack.
User avatar
By Fitzhume
#4922239
Quick update, grinding the lenses down took a bit of time but it turned out great. The power cell lense I used a cutting disc on the Dremel to resize it and then rounded the corners a bit and it fit great as well. I measured the power cell window first and made sure to draw the lines on the acrylic lens with a thick black sharpie marker. I made sure the lines were a little bigger than the lense because of the recessed section the lens sits in. With the cutting disc technique, I put down a thick piece of cardboard first and then would cut through just a bit along the lines. I kept doing this until I touched the cardboard. The cut was pretty clean but I still took a sanding bit to smooth it out a bit. I didn't get any images of the cut on the power cell though.

You can see the size that the lense was and how much I sanded them down to.

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I've left the protective material on for now but the lenses fit flush in their recessed places. More to come.
User avatar
By Fitzhume
#4922304
canpara wrote: August 11th, 2019, 9:22 am Great progress. Keep us posted. I'm excited for more pictures!
I definitely will. The last 1/2 of this week was painting and working on the lenses.

I have 1 4" speaker as of now and I'm waiting on my pack to dry so I thought I would start working on the internals a bit or at least map it out. Was it worth mounting two speakers in your pack? With the 2 speakers, did you need any extra batteries or hardware to run both? Did you run the speakers parallel or series?
User avatar
By bishopdonmiguel
#4922309
My opinion is the 2 speaker setup is well worth it. But if you have concern, I’d recommend grabbing a set of the larger 5-1/2” speakers from a retailer like Walmart and hook up. Test. Then test the 4” speaker. If you don’t notice a difference, return the speakers.

No extra power required to run.
Last edited by bishopdonmiguel on August 11th, 2019, 10:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By Fitzhume
#4922311
bishopdonmiguel wrote: August 11th, 2019, 10:23 am My option is the 2 speaker setup is well worth it. But if you have concern, I’d recommend grabbing a set of the larger 5-1/2” speakers from a retailer like Walmart and hook up. Test. Then test the 4” speaker. If you don’t notice a difference, return the speakers.

No extra power required to run.
Thanks for the quick reply about this. I will pick up some speakers and give it a go.
User avatar
By bishopdonmiguel
#4922317
By the way, the sound board is designed to work with speakers 4-8 ohms. If you get 4 ohm speakers, wire in series for 8 ohms. If you get 8 ohm speakers (unlikely), wire in parallel for 4 ohms.
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By Fitzhume
#4922333
1st use of Bondo and the Ion block. This reminds me of putting my Stormtrooper armor together as I had one shot with the plastic welder at that time. It turned out better than I thought. As most have done in the past, marked up the section of the pack and the underside of the Ion block 1st with a grinding bit from the Dremel. After which, mixed up the Bondo and applied a layer on the pack corner and the underside of the Ion arm. Then used a square to make sure the block was flush with each edge. I then waited about 5-10 minutes and then flipped the pack over and drilled through the pack and the block at the same time. Finished attaching the block by driving in the 5.5mm self-taping roof screws.

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You can see the 1st two holes that I drilled as a result of not thinking the process through. I originally thought to pre-drill the 2 holes in the pack, then hold the Ion block to the pack and mark the holes on the bottom of the block. Ya....that didn't work as well as I thought it would. Putting the Bondo on plugged those holes with no problem.

I hope to get the booster tube attached tonight as well. I will be getting a block of wood placed snuggly inside at the right depth to expose the plug correctly.

On a side note, these images do not do it justice as the two-toned with satin and truck bed liner looks really sharp.

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By Fitzhume
#4922566
canpara wrote: August 14th, 2019, 6:24 pm Very nice work indeed!
Thanks a bunch, Mario! I've actually been rather busy on the build since my last post. I've attached a good number of the accessories to the pack minus tubing and some make-shift Clippard elbows. I didn't purchase the actual pieces so I have some painting to do.

This is a list of everything that I have attached since painting:

Ion Block
Injector tubes
Booster Tube
Booster Later
Painted/Weathered resisters
Painted Clippard 331 (pack)

I need to prime the Clippard elbows bases so I may paint them gold.

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I had my first oops that I'm not sure how to fix or if I should worry about it at all. You can see that the PPD is a bit high. All measurements seemed to be correct but now after attaching it, you can see it is a little high and not flush. The image below you can't tell from that angle though. I just liked that angle :)

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Elbow added to the Ion block. Tapped the hole and screwed it in.

Here I added some brown leather paint to the resisters to give them a weathered look.

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Before...
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After
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For anyone that has used resin resistors instead of the actual ones, what was the method of attaching the hoses to them? Or any ideas?

Next will be to work on gear box and tubing.
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By alleyradb
#4922595
Prior to purchasing the genuine resistors, I just drilled holes into the replicas and used a bit of glue to hold them in place. You need only drill into them an 1/2” or so.

Alternatively, you could drill holes and insert small wood or metal dowels to slip your hoses over to better replicate the real resistors.
User avatar
By Fitzhume
#4922608
alleyradb wrote: August 15th, 2019, 11:13 pm Prior to purchasing the genuine resistors, I just drilled holes into the replicas and used a bit of glue to hold them in place. You need only drill into them an 1/2” or so.

Alternatively, you could drill holes and insert small wood or metal dowels to slip your hoses over to better replicate the real resistors.
I like the small dowel idea, that way it can resemble the same type of hose setup from the genuine resistors. Thanks for the suggestion!
By Prologic9
#4922706
I think most of the packs ended up with resin resistors after GBII. They put in clippard hose barbs for the dale Resistors. This is easy and effective;

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And it appears they just drilled a hole for the small sage resistor, probably because of the conical shape;

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By Fitzhume
#4923030
With the start of school where I work, I haven't had much energy since my last post to do much. I'm waiting on some parts to finish the external pack and will be mapping out and drilling the mouse hole by tomorrow. I have my step bit ready for that. I just need to take my time figuring out where the placement of the BionicMoonLabs loom clamp will live.

1st update is the crank-gen loom. I decided to use a short dowel with the loom itself and bondo that in place. This was the easiest way for me to create more resistance that would hold the loom as a result of it needing to bend very quickly out of the hole.

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As you will see in the following pictures, the hose fits no problem into the metal tube on the pack. I decided not to use glue, epoxy, or another dowel rod as there is enough pressure from the loom that it will not come out. If I find that it falls out, and it doesn't seem like it can, I will address it then.

I will be using all GBFans sound/lights plus Spongeface's TVG board and relay, I thought to use the frosted lenses that Spongeface was selling. I really liked the way they looked. In a previous post, I showed that I cut/ground the lenses down to fit in the recesses of the cyclotron. However, I did not take my time with the first two lenses when I installed them. I used a super glue gel but put too much in the seam which squirted onto the lense. I was not quick enough or thorough when attempting to clean it up.

This is the result:

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This picture is with a flash and it is rather noticeable. I attempted to use acetone to attempt to loosen the glue to clean it off. No luck so far. I will try some alcohol and see if I get any different results. I will update with what I find. The other lenses look good except for a fingerprint here or there from the glue that got on my finger. Those are hard to see unless I use a flash on them of course.

The Ribbon Cable - I used Canpara's, and Pssdffjay’s idea (and I'm sure there are others) to trace the curve of the ribbon clamp and trim the cable to match.

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The dark marks are from the sharpie that I used. Since this will be up against the cyclotron, you would not be able to see it.



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Here it is installed:
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I really like how the ribbon cable took to my rolling it. I still may add zip-ties to it to help keep its shape. Tomorrow I will also be adding a zip tie and tape to the end of the cable to keep it from working its way back out of the hole.

The other tubing that is not installed is due to a painting failure. I have painted miniatures in the past so I have a lot of paint leftover. I thought to paint up the 3d printer Clippard elbows gold for the HGA (not installed), beamline, and ion arm. This did not go well as I don't have the correct paint to make it the gold that it needs. I ordered some replicas from the GBFan shop and once I get those, they and the hoses will be installed. The crank-gen knob will go on on a little later when I decide how I will be handling the volume control of the pack sound.

Not much of an update but I hope to ramp it up again this weekend.
By alleyradb
#4923034
Fitzhume wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 8:50 pmI will be using all GBFans sound/lights plus Spongeface's TVG board and relay, I thought to use the frosted lenses that Spongeface was selling. I really liked the way they looked. In a previous post, I showed that I cut/ground the lenses down to fit in the recesses of the cyclotron. However, I did not take my time with the first two lenses when I installed them. I used a super glue gel but put too much in the seam which squirted onto the lense. I was not quick enough or thorough when attempting to clean it up.

This is the result:

Image

This picture is with a flash and it is rather noticeable. I attempted to use acetone to attempt to loosen the glue to clean it off. No luck so far. I will try some alcohol and see if I get any different results. I will update with what I find. The other lenses look good except for a fingerprint here or there from the glue that got on my finger. Those are hard to see unless I use a flash on them of course.
I had this same result using a fairly small amount of gorilla glue. As it dries, it releases it’s moisture and expands and creeps into gaps; which gives it that smudged look.

If you’re going for a heavily aged pack: this will work to your advantage as you’ve managed to already weather the lenses without even trying.

If you wanted the lenses clean: you’re practically out of luck. There’s very little that can be done to remove the glue’s effects without damaging the lenses.

I tried using alcohol, paint thinner, acetone and lacquer thinner. None were able to remove the smudges the gorilla glue caused — and also managed to etch and damage the lense. You’re likely better off buying a new set and starting over with those than spending hours and using solvents to clean them.
User avatar
By bishopdonmiguel
#4923055
I know many builders think using the Crank Knob as a volume control is a great idea. It can be if you are okay with possibly being unable to adjust the volume while wearing the pack. Seriously, try the pack on and try to reach for that knob. I couldn’t reach it but I’m old and inflexible. From experience, I’ll say you’ll be at full volume much of the time. But there are occasions where you’ll want to adjust, sometimes quickly.

I’m not saying don’t do it, just give serious thought to best placement for your situation.
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By Fitzhume
#4923085
bishopdonmiguel wrote: August 23rd, 2019, 5:53 am I know many builders think using the Crank Knob as a volume control is a great idea. It can be if you are okay with possibly being unable to adjust the volume while wearing the pack. Seriously, try the pack on and try to reach for that knob. I couldn’t reach it but I’m old and inflexible. From experience, I’ll say you’ll be at full volume much of the time. But there are occasions where you’ll want to adjust, sometimes quickly.

I’m not saying don’t do it, just give serious thought to best placement for your situation.
I appreciate this feedback. I keep going back and forth about it. At this time I don't have a Spengler plate to put it there even though that is probably one of the better solutions. I may end up ordering one with charge cables with it. As for the knob itself, do people just make it a stationary piece or put a volume pod to allow it to still spin but without function?
User avatar
By bishopdonmiguel
#4923087
Fitzhume wrote: As for the knob itself, do people just make it a stationary piece or put a volume pod to allow it to still spin but without function?
I’ve seen it both ways. Personal preference really. Mine spins but doesn’t have any function. I partially dismantled a potentiometer so that I would spin without limit. I like that because the knob feels like it does something. I think I took a picture of this in my thread.

As for placement of a volume control, I put the pack on and reached for potential spots on the pack. In the end, I decided a knob centered on the motherboard roughly behind my kidneys was a comfortable location to reach yet reasonably well hidden. I tweaked the position slightly after marking to ensure it didn’t interfere with any components inside the pack. Definitely not “screen accurate” but that didn’t bother me. Also covered in my build if you’re still undecided and want to consider that option.
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By Fitzhume
#4923088
Bishop, what is the best approach with the loom clamp so I can still take the pack off to work on the motherboard? It would make sense then to use a mouse hole with the template, but what if you would like to do just a circle hole?
User avatar
By bishopdonmiguel
#4923089
Fitzhume wrote:Bishop, what is the best approach with the loom clamp so I can still take the pack off to work on the motherboard? It would make sense then to use a mouse hole with the template, but what if you would like to do just a circle hole?
You’re still going to need to cut some or all of the ears off the smaller hole to allow the hose to clear so you can pull the shell off the motherboard. But mounting the clamp inside allows for a smaller more round looking hole, less a mouse hole.
User avatar
By Fitzhume
#4923090
bishopdonmiguel wrote: August 23rd, 2019, 7:57 pm
Fitzhume wrote:Bishop, what is the best approach with the loom clamp so I can still take the pack off to work on the motherboard? It would make sense then to use a mouse hole with the template, but what if you would like to do just a circle hole?
You’re still going to need to cut some or all of the ears off the smaller hole to allow the hose to clear so you can pull the shell off the motherboard. But mounting the clamp inside allows for a smaller more round looking hole, less a mouse hole.
But the hold itself will be close to the motherboard instead of the middle of the panel right?
User avatar
By bishopdonmiguel
#4923091
Yes. I think the template shows the motherboard line for either type of hole. Round hole should be close to bottom of shell. Remove enough ear so the shell passes over loom.
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By Fitzhume
#4923375
So I didn't drill the mouse hole yet but I have received the Clippard elbows and will be finishing up the pack here soon. I started working on the wand in the meantime.

Wand Construction -

I drilled out all holes needed for the rear box, trigger, box, switches, hat/dome light covers and opened the barrel and handle holes.

I created a little stop ledge for the rear handle, as well as opened the end of the handle that is in the gun box to allow for more room to get the ribbon cable and other cable routing later on.

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I ended up cutting these two bolts down so I could have more room in the gun box.

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This is the cut that I created for the rear handle.

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I also spent a lot of time, of course taking my time, in creating recessed areas for the switch boxes and light covers.

Here are the bottom plate and rear gun box covers. I need to re-punch the 2 spots for the V-hook at it is a bit off. I have not drilled these yet, but I will before I paint it.

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I have widened the bar graph window to accept the Spongeface cover for the graph itself. It fits well and not snug at this time. I will wait until I mount it before filling the small gap with something. Here is an image of that window as well as everything put together for that gun box.

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I think I'm ready to mount the front/rear cylinders and then handles. However, I feel that I'm missing something before I do this. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could be forgetting before moving forward?

As for getting the barrel lights and end of wand button and light to the end of the wand, is there a better way to manage this instead of using Bondo to mount the grip? If I do this, I cannot run a channel for the cables. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
User avatar
By bishopdonmiguel
#4923378
Looks like it’s there but make sure you have a hole between the trigger box and instrument bar. Once you mount those it would be difficult to drill a hole for wiring.

Not sure what you mean regarding Bondo and the grip.
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