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I agree on the episodes Kingpin suggested and I can also create two list for other references


Screen References

- The Boogieman Cometh: Egon uses the PKE Meter outside a closet and you can see a sinusoid-like curve passing on the default screen, just like the one you created for your screen, but the curve seems to go in the opposite direction (left to right of the screen).

- Mr. Sandman, Dream Me A Dream: Egon uses the PKE Meter outside a door. It's a very strange screen, with yellow dots and circles. In the episode, it's connected with the particular Ion Field of the dream manifestations (the antenna also moves differently)

- Knock Knock: a particular screen, with concentric circles, it's seen when they arrive to the Door. The associated sound it's also audible, but I don't know how clear is that (considering the dialog)

- Ghost Fight at the O.K. Corral: there is a brief but very close look at the screen of Winston's PKE Meter turning on, when they split up at the beginning, just outside Tombston Epitaph. Since also Ray uses the PKE Meter, in this episode you could also find some audio sample (I can't remember if there's music when they use it).

- Ragnarok and Roll: when Egon scans the piece of paper at Cindy's house, you should be able to see the screen and hear a clear audio sample.

- Robo-Buster: in the second half of the episode, the all team is on the Ecto-1 and Egon gives direction according to the PKE Meter. You can see a completely different, radar-like screen.


Sound References

- Venkman's Ghost Repellers: contains brief but frequent samples of audio, when the Ghostbusters are in the other dimension.

- Janine Melnitz, Ghostbuster: there are multiple audio samples, at the beginning when Egon checks the PKE Level (in the Firehouse), then when he scan the statue and later when Janine starts investigating, in the elevator, with a completely different sound effect.

- The Boogeyman Is Back: it shows a clear image of the screen (with a sinusoid-like curve) and a audio sample, when we see Jason using the meter.

I could easily find other examples, but I hope these can help you. If you need any suggestion about wich screen include in your masterpiece, I think it needs at least two or three animations dedicated to locating a ghost, at least a couple to analyze enviroment and objects (with circles, sinusoid and other symbols).

Did you already have an idea of how many different animations it could have?

Thank you both for the references, I'll check them out this weekend!

Vale_Spengler wrote:Did you already have an idea of how many different animations it could have?

There's no limit to how many screens could be programmed as it's using a Raspberry Pi. I also picked up a magnetometer that could be used to simulate tracking a fake ghost that has it's position randomized against magnetic north. That's further off in the future but something I'd like to make sure I consider.

I'll try and grab some sample audio and GIF animations of the screens to post here for reference.

So I was able to grab a couple shots and upload them tonight: http://imgur.com/a/TpBAm

The one that I think I'll aim for first is this:

Still working on sounds but I was able to find some good samples from the ones listed. I'll try to get them cleaned up and uploaded by tomorrow as well.

This is awesome! I can't wait to see the finished product. Will you have the files available or offer kits or anything? Since i can't shell out the money for a Matty movie PKE and there really isn't much of anything else out there i thought a RGB PKE would be a cool substitute and this is one of the best ones i have seen so far.

J2Metal wrote:Will you have the files available or offer kits or anything?

I will have the files available for people to print from and may consider putting together some kits if time allows. There are a lot of electronics inside that I'm still working out that complicate the build so we'll see.

I went through another handful of episodes today and found this one repeated a number of times:

This will probably be the other I plan to recreate in the project. The album (http://imgur.com/a/TpBAm) has been updated with the other new ones I found so take a look and let me know what you think!

Happy Thanksgiving!

That's the one from "Robo-Buster", right?

It would be awesome if you could create animations that:
1) Locate a Ghost (like the one from Robo-Buster)
2) Evaluate a Ghost Level (like the ones from Ghost 'R Us or The Boogieman Cometh)
3) Scan an enviroment/object (like the ones from Mr Sandman dream me a dream and Mrs. Roger's Neighborhood).

Those are the three main use of the PKE Meter, so it would be great to have different animations dedicated to each purpose.

Oh...Do I have to tell you that I'm also interested in a kit or any possible (future) way to put my hands on a PKE like this?

PS - I'm impressed by the idea of using a magnetometer!

Project is still progressing, though the holidays slowed it down quite a bit.

I'm currently getting hung up on the best way to drive the antenna arms. Here's a photo of what I'm planning to do:


There's not a lot of room on the antenna mast to include mechanics to drive the arms (animators probably didn't care when drawing the cartoons! )

I'm going to grab some supplies at the hobby shop today to see if this will even work. Any suggestions from the crowd?

That... is bloody brilliant! I've been sketching plans on a collapsing, functioning RGB for YEARS and it NEVER occurred to me to have the arm motors as part of the sliding mechanism. I am loving this entire project

Cole Funstuff wrote:Project is still progressing, though the holidays slowed it down quite a bit.

There's not a lot of room on the antenna mast to include mechanics to drive the arms

Yes, I thougt about that a lot and clearly you have to operate the arms from the inside of the PKE.
I think you're solution is brilliant, but now you're facing a new problem: after you find all the parts you need, they could not they fit into the main body (unless your mode is in scale, in that case you're even more brilliant)

Let us know how it's going

I'd love to help on this project, if I can. I have several tools that can help including a kinematic motion simulation program in SolidWorks. Helps a lot for determining motors and how feasible assemblies will be. It's also my dayjob to simulate engineering designs.

RettMikhal wrote:I'd love to help on this project, if I can. I have several tools that can help including a kinematic motion simulation program in SolidWorks. Helps a lot for determining motors and how feasible assemblies will be. It's also my dayjob to simulate engineering designs.

Thanks for the reply and sorry for not responding to your PM!

I've been modeling in OnShape for this project so I'm not sure how well it would translate over to SolidWorks for simulation. OnShape is actually pretty well suited for modeling kinematics as I have assemblies built with motion constraints to verify clearances/tolerances before I print them.

Most everything is complete at this point (aside from the antenna mast) and just needs to be printed. If this week goes well then I think I'll have a working mock-up of the wings and antenna I can post here.

[quote="Cole Funstuff"]So I have most of the major stuff finished up for what I think it should have to get printed. Here's the link to the model at OnShape if you'd like to export your own STLs or modify the model:

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/7d22a ... a0bdb28b75

How do you export this from the site? I have no idea how to do it.

Check here for exporting into different file formats: https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/ex ... -files.htm

Cole Funstuff wrote:Check here for exporting into different file formats: https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/ex ... -files.htm

Thank you!

Do you have any new updates on yours?

gbfan3569 wrote:Do you have any new updates on yours?

I need to figure out power draws for the servos as I can't feed them directly from the Pi (overloads the circuit). I may have to transition to a LiPo with charging circuit that can support the LCD, servo, Pi, and lights, but am still playing around with a couple ideas.

I'm also getting ready to move into my first house (where I'll finally have a workshop) so a lot of the material is getting ready to be packed up. The model for all intents and purposes is complete, I just need to finalize the mounting points for the electronics.

I'll hope to have something a bit more concrete here in a month or so!

Are you planning on posting any of the codes for the different screens?

gbfan3569 wrote:Are you planning on posting any of the codes for the different screens?

Yeah, though these are quite primitive as well due to my focus on the hardware. It's a simple Pygame script that draws a couple sprites and a sine curve in the background. Again, hope to have more once the house move finishes up.

awesome!! are you planning on sharing the 3d files?

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Cole Funstuff wrote:

gbfan3569 wrote:Do you have any new updates on yours?

I need to figure out power draws for the servos as I can't feed them directly from the Pi (overloads the circuit). I may have to transition to a LiPo with charging circuit that can support the LCD, servo, Pi, and lights, but am still playing around with a couple ideas.

For my pke meter I use 4 AAA batteries to power one Arduino nano with a screen, buzzer, and 14 LEDs. Directly from the power source I also use one of these buck converters to power the servo separately

https://www.amazon.com/eBoot-MP1584EN-C ... rter&psc=1

It powers the servo at 5v separately from the Arduino. I've found these converters are quite good at holding voltage. I get 5-6 hours on 4 AAA batteries in mine. You should be able to run both servos off one converter.

Use a buck converter to power the servo, those micro servos have stall ratings around 0.75A-1A. However, most servos want 5v P-P PWM, so you may need a level shifter on the Pi GPIO to get there. ~2200uF bypass on the switcher module should let you stall both servos without shutting down small modules in overload.

Just stumbled upon this project, incredibly excited and enthusiastic about it!

Hopefully this will be taken as a helpful suggestion rather than a criticism, but it occurs to me, I'm pretty sure that in many episodes Egon just manually pulls the antenna mast up out of the PKE meter.

I wasn't even aware that it ever did automatically rise out of the meter until watching that animated gif of the bit from Mr. Sandman, Dream Me A Dream. Obviously it's awesome that you are replicating that, but as a result you have quite a bit of mechanical work in there to make that work. Plus your antenna mast rises quite slowly, it would be hard to get it to rise quickly as it does in that epsiode.

Also, the more moving, mechanical parts there are, the more chances of something breaking. I personally wouldn't mind if needed to grab the top of the mast and pull it up manually, as Egon does in many episodes.

I think that having the two antennas arms mechanically unfold from the mast (and possibly wibble about!) would be a rather more desirable feature, as it is is commonly seen in episodes. Hopefully it could operate in a similar way to the moving antenna arms on the original movie PKE and Matty PKE. So when it comes to mechanical moving parts, I'd concentrate on trying to get the two antenna arms moving, I'd consider having the entire mast rise from the PKE less essential.

I also just stumbled onto this project and I have to say it looks fantastic. I am impressed. You're doing great stuff here. This is going to be one awesome PKE.

I just gotta say it's projects like these that make me feel like one of the dumbest people on the planet. So much brilliance here.

Keep up the good work!

Alex

Printed a prototype now that I'm moved into the new house for the antenna mechanics:

http://i.imgur.com/KwZKPxJ.gifv

I'm toying with the idea of creating my own drive mechanism for the mast as it's been pointed out how slow it is. This way I could change the screw pitch and hopefully speed up the drive. I'm also playing with a couple ideas on how/where to mount the Raspberry Pi which should be reflected in the Onshape model for those of you who are curious.

More to come!

NIIIICE!!! That's awesome, I love that you're figuring out a way to get the antenna to wiggle about!

Did you read my previous comment about having the mast be something you raise manually from the PKE, rather than being motorized?

Other than the Sandman episode, I can't think of any episodes where the mast rises automatically, I'd actually consider it an animation error. In every other episode Egon (or whoever) pulls up the mast. Of course it'll be fantastic if you are able to make your own drive mechanism and speed up the drive, but that's still a lot of work for a feature seen in only one episode.

Unless you reckon that having the Ghostbuster manually pull up the mast would increase the chances of breaking something?

your evil twin wrote:Did you read my previous comment about having the mast be something you raise manually from the PKE, rather than being motorized?

I did, sorry for not responding! With a manual pull, we'd still need to have a rail type system for the mast to ride on to keep it in the right spot. Adding a small DC motor, screw, and nut is really all that's being added on top of this rail.

I'll try and design it so that people can keep it manual if they'd prefer, but it's also a preference thing for me to add it in since I think it looks so cool.

Oh, I think it looks cool too! At an event it would look very impressive to get out the PKE, press a button or turn a dial and have the mast magically rise up. That will wow people as much as a proton pack!

Was just concerned that it might be the trickiest part of the build, wouldn't want you stressing over a "non-essential" feature.

(Also, since I'm personally not very experienced with building things/repairing things, the more mechanical parts it has the more I worry about something malfunctioning!)

Fantastic work so far, man. Can't wait to see more.

In response to the comments about the mast, perhaps we only see the action of it deploying in detail in Mr. Sandman, but I can think of lots of times when Egon hears it on his belt and pulls it up with one hand then boom the mast is deployed, which makes me think he hit a switch to deploy it. What we do see a lot is him pushing it back down manually, and not once that I can think of do you see it retract automatically. Couple this with the speed of deployment and I think the simplest solution is a moderately stiff spring; one sized appropriately to deploy it at speed but also be easy to push down by hand. You'd save weight and power on the motors and worm gear to deploy it and replace it with a simple rail mechanism. When I first thought of designing one, my first instinct was a spring.