This is for other Ghostbusters Props that don't fit into the categories above.
#4795914
KCGhostbuster wrote:Great build so far, can't wait for the next update.
Thank you, sir! Hopefully you enjoy the latest update.
bishopdonmiguel wrote:Joie de vivre, mon amie
"Sipping cognac like a french king. Plenty of room, I own the whole thing!"
GohstTarp wrote:That sounds effin' fantastic! Another one of my favorites is from LOST...
Thanks! Not sure that I have heard that one, but I will try and find it. Unfortunately, I only ever watched the first episode of the show.
#4795951
910dohead wrote:"Sipping cognac like a french king. Plenty of room, I own the whole thing!"
Ahhh! Don't get me started! There was a time, now seems a lifetime ago, when I had the lyrics to every Boingo song in my head. I listened to some for hours trying to decipher each song. Good times.
910dohead liked this
#4795972
bishopdonmiguel wrote:
910dohead wrote:"Sipping cognac like a french king. Plenty of room, I own the whole thing!"
Ahhh! Don't get me started! There was a time, now seems a lifetime ago, when I had the lyrics to every Boingo song in my head. I listened to some for hours trying to decipher each song. Good times.
Yeah, I agree. We would probably be able to go back and forth and i'd have to rename the thread from Containment Build to Boingo lyric quotes. Haha. Hell, I even know all of the lyrics to the rare and unreleased stuff too so it would literally be a never ending thread.
o0Ecto1A0o liked this
#4796039
Build Day 14:

Here's a short but sweet update to where we are out in the build. This was all done a few hours ago so it's all still fresh.

First we used gaffers tape to temporarily secure the front to the frame to get all of the panels measured out and in the right spots. We made a mock handle frame to the scale we think its in to help us get everything lined up. Would you believe me if I told you that the frame around the handle is a found part?

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Once we had them where we wanted them, we traced them out and prepped them to be cut out.

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Then Onlyalad19 took the time to figure out the measurements for the flush handle.

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Also the opening for the handle.

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While he was doing that, I was cutting out the holes for the push button panel. The good stuff is starting and I can't be happier with the results.

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My biggest worry was having to mount these. One is heavy enough and three is triple that. However, they hold up on their own and i'm confident that these will work well. I am dreading the final step of having to wire everything up. I understand electronics to a certain point and this may be beyond the extent of my knowledge. Hopefully there are people in the community that can lend us a hand and their knowledge to get everything to light up? One thing that's missing from the buttons that I mentioned earlier are little colored lenses (red, yellow, green) that slide onto the ends. We're going to have to make these out of acrylic. I may start that process tomorrow.

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Lastly, the right frame piece is done and the aluminum plate is going to be mounted tomorrow when we get the right screws for it.

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On a side note, i've started designing some of the labels that are on the unit. Some i've been able to figure out just by watching screen shots. Others will need a little imagination to get them to emulate what can be seen on screen. As far as tomorrow's work is concerned, I believe our plan of attack is to have our cuts done to the front and have the panels mounted. Until then...
o0Ecto1A0o, barison82 liked this
#4796063
Looking great. Two thoughts:

1) What are your thoughts for electronics?? Are you thinking a micro processor?? Are you planning a master shutdown switch with fog and backlighting?? Are you wanting sound??

2) For the colored cover for the switches, I would look into theater gels. They are thin pieces of plastic that are used in stage theater to give red or whatever color of light. Just google "theater gels". Or if you know someone that works at the local theater, they might be able to help you out.
#4796073
Check out a proper camera store (not like a best buy) and see if them have a Rosco or Lee sample swatch book. Sometimes you can get one for free sometimes they are $5 but they have a sample of every gel colour that you can get. They may be big enough to fit in there.
#4796137
Yes, the plan is to incorporate working lights and sounds. The idea is to replicate what the containment unit does on screen. We would also like to have a shutdown switch and to have our foam walls blast fog out of them. This has definitely been discussed in the very beginning. We're just going to have to wait until we get to that point and decide if its something that we want to spend the extra money on. Right now we're scaling our goal down which is to have the prop visually completed. It's a much more realistic goal and it helps relieve some of the frustration we've experienced with the build so far. We're putting a lot of time and effort into this build and we don't want to rush a cheap and crappy electronics setup. However, we may have the unit constructed a month early and will have the time to do the electronics. Who knows?

We also don't have a plan when it comes to how we're going to approach the setup. I was going to contact others in the community who have built units and hopefully get some guidance as to how they did theirs. It seems like it could be an easy setup, but those may be the famous last words.

Thanks for the heads up on the gels. This has certainly been discussed to save some money. We've also talked about using acrylic dye on the lenses. However, the third option would be the most ideal and could possibly be exactly how they would've done it in the film. Each push button uses four tiny bulbs inside of them to illuminate the lenses. The manufacturer also made tiny plastic caps that came in different colors that would be used to cover the bulbs individually. These color caps are impossible to find and may no longer even exist (as they wore down and the manufacturer stopped producing them years ago). The modern day solution to this is to simply buy colored bulbs. Luckily these push buttons are mil-spec so the bulbs weren't proprietary. They are commonly used in many other applications and are still manufactured to this day.

We also haven't purchased these bulbs for a few reasons. First, they are pricey little suckers which makes the alternative of using gels that much more appealing. The price of one bulb doesn't sound so bad, but when you need twelve of them it starts to add up fast. Secondly, the bulbs come in different volts. We don't have the sconce/explosion proof lights yet so we don't know the voltage that's going to be required. The push buttons can be wired to accommodate different voltages so its best if we wait. Who knows when that will be either because the correct lights are super rare (i'm willing to bet very expensive as well). Honestly, i've had a much easier time locating correct Ecto-1 parts then I have had with these. Nightly internet searches and e-mails turn up zero results. They just seem to be that rare.
o0Ecto1A0o liked this
#4796242
If they are the kind of bulb I am thinking of, be warned that once they are pushed in to the socket, they can be a real pain to replace. I've had to do this a few times on equipment at work, and the best way to pull the bulbs out without crushing them in to glass dust is to use a short length of rubber tube, such as heat shrink. Gently fit it over the bulb (it needs to be pretty tight) then pull the tube without applying pressure to the bulb itself. ;)

Love this project, by the way. Can't wait to see the end result!
#4796307
PssdffJay wrote:Could you use LEDs instead?
That's a possibility since they make the small bulbs as LEDs.
Smeghead wrote:If they are the kind of bulb I am thinking of, be warned that once they are pushed in to the socket, they can be a real pain to replace. I've had to do this a few times on equipment at work, and the best way to pull the bulbs out without crushing them in to glass dust is to use a short length of rubber tube, such as heat shrink. Gently fit it over the bulb (it needs to be pretty tight) then pull the tube without applying pressure to the bulb itself. ;)

Love this project, by the way. Can't wait to see the end result!
I believe that we are talking about the exact ones. That's excellent advice and we will use that in the future when replacing the bulbs.

Thank you. We can't wait to see it finished either!

Update: Build Day 15.

Spent the early part of the morning getting the panels mounted to the front.

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Everything fit to the front perfectly.

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As I was drilling pilot holes for each of the panels, other work was being done to get the hole for flush handle cut out.

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We cut the hole out smaller then we needed it and then sanded it down to the proper size for allowance of the handle shaft.

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Then we drilled all of the necessary holes to get the lever to work.

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I didn't take any pictures of the handle in place but i'll include those in the next update. A lot was done yesterday and the day before that so we've earned a break for ourselves for today. Next update probably won't be for another few days. Until then...
#4798020
It may look like not much has happened since the last update, but I can assure you that's not the case. First, there was always debate about whether the edges on the bottom backboard were rounded or not. We left ours straight until we could find a screenshot.

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We finally found a screen shot during the explosion sequence and settled that debate once and for all.

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Then we drilled the four corner holes and added the bolts.

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We are going to leave the top left bolt unpainted. As you can see in this screenshot, it is left as such. The other three are painted.

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Doesn't this look better now?

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At some point after we added primer to the backboard, we went back over it to eliminate all of the tiny imperfections that were left behind. At this point it was prepped to be primed one last time.

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Before we got to that step, we took the time to figure out the size of the flush handle.

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This is where we left off that night.

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Then the following day we started with getting the backboard primed. Earlier on in the build, we pre-drilled the holes for the screws that were going to secure the frame.

Before:
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After:
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We were pretty confident that we removed every imperfection and thankfully we did just that! It looks fantastic. Couldn't tell the piece is made out of wood.

Moving away from wood, we contracted Umoribawar to make our flush handle out of aluminum. We gave him the measurements and he sent us this picture.

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When we received the handle, it looked great and was exactly to the specs we provided.

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We couldn't be more happier with this handle and if you ever need something special made out of aluminum, umoribawar is the guy you want to go with. We want to thank him ever so much for his aid in our build.

Now, here is what our project looked like as of this afternoon. Notice anything different?

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Besides the handle being mounted, the frame and front cover are completely new. When we built our original frame, we were never 100% satisfied with it. The wood was cheap and kept expanding. It was flimsy and our bondo work never held together properly. We rebuilt both pieces in a span of two days and now the frame is a beast! It's everything we originally wanted it to be.

Now, we're at the part of our build where we can mount the front to the frame. First we had to countersink the screws and drilled pilot holes into the frame.

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Next we used wood glue to strengthen the bond.

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Then all that was left was to screw it down.

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Now that it was bolted down, the handle was fit into place. Looks great!

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We also primed the smaller blocks. We still need to drill two large holes to accommodate the flex connectors and then mount them to the backboard.

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Now, here's a shot of what our project looks like as of the end of today. It's getting there! It needs some more holes drilled in it and then a layer of filler. From then on the frame will be primed and then we'll move onto the inner workings of the door.

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Our table banner also arrived earlier this week. This also turned out great!

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We have a few things to unveil regarding the C4 convention. Details have been finalized and confirmed. I just don't know if I can make an announcement yet. We are also doing another convention here in California a few months after that. It's a big one, so if you're in California and you can't make it to C4 in Ventura, chances are you'll be able to see our completed containment unit at the next one.
o0Ecto1A0o, Kingpin, Dougger and 1 others liked this
#4800309
I wanted to jump in here and just update everyone who has been following this build. We are currently waiting on a few more parts and are slowly working on other details that we will reveal in the coming weeks. Also, since the temperature has hit the triple digits in our area, we have put any priming and painting on hold unitl it cools down a bit. We should have something to update soon, so stay tuned.
o0Ecto1A0o liked this
#4802716
EvilToastyBagel wrote:this build looks downright amazeballs guys, fantastic job!

Can one of you guys post up your general measurements of this for reference? I think I wanna tackle one of these since I'm gonna be building a trap too.

Thanks for the compliment EvilToastyBagel. We will be posting our measurements once we have everything completed along with a complete parts list.
#4802732
Man that is some serious hardcore work. Can't wait to see it finished.
#4802757
actorfactor wrote:I'm sure someone has made a comment like this before, But if there is any chance, please consider using this as a buck and and selling fiberglass shells of it:)
.. I can dream right?
That idea did come up at some point during the earlier stages of the build.
o0Ecto1A0o liked this
#4803070
EvilToastyBagel wrote:Another question, since you're using wood what does that sucker weigh? I'm thinking of making mine out of foam and plastidipping various parts because I don't think I have a wall that could support that monster xD
It actually surprised us on how much it weighs. I can tell you that it weighs less than a hero proton pack. While we haven't weighed it yet, my guess would be either under or around forty pounds? I can lift the whole thing up with one finger, so it's much lighter than it looks.

We're going to either have a frame built out of steel or find something to repurpose that the unit will attach to. We're going to use foam sheets for the brick walls.
o0Ecto1A0o liked this
User avatar
By 910dohead
#4822032
Here is just an update to this project. I know it's been a while since the last update but we had to pause work on it for several reasons. First was tracking down parts. We want to build this properly and we needed the right pieces to move forward. Second, the heat was too much for us. We live in one of the hottest places in Southern California and it's not fun to work in a garage when it's 125+ degrees with no air conditioning.

Finally, we've successfully found the correct lenses for the push button switches, the correct 'Erase Varbl(s)' black knob and even found 2 accurate new old stock barn lights! The one part that we cannot find is the red knob. We know what kind of knob it is and we have some but they're the wrong sizes. We have one that's 1/2" and 1" but the correct size appears to be 3/4" which seems impossible to find. If anyone wants to help us locate these (has access to a place that has a large stock of various control knobs) please send me a pm. I'll tell you who makes the knob if you're willing to help track one down for us.

Anyways, we are starting this project back up and will continue to post updates in the very near future.
Dougger, o0Ecto1A0o liked this
User avatar
By 910dohead
#4822570
Before I get into our next update, I just want to quickly mention the other projects that our group also began this year. Since this year is almost over i'd like to review the progress from our two other builds. First, o0Ecto1A0o has just about completed a fully printed with aged pages, gold foiled and leather bound Tobin's Spirit Guide. It looks fantastic! He is at a point where he could call it completed but he's just waiting for some antique brass pieces to add to each corner. Take a look!

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His build thread is located here: http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... =7&t=35451.

Also, what kinda of group would we be without an Ecto?

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In the beginning, we always joked about dropping the idea of using a Ford Flex if a Miller Meteor ever came along that we could afford. Well, we recently found a '60 Miller Meteor coach. It was beautiful and for an amazing price. The vehicle even ran with a modern engine! However, it needed a full restoration including a donor car to repair the rust damage to the rear quarter panels. It needed at least another $25k (if we cut corners) to fully bring it back in shape. That's when we were completely sold on the idea of using a Flex.

Our build thread for our Ecto-Flex is located here: http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... 13&t=35961

Expect to see the thread revived in early 2015 once the car is purchased.

Alright, now let's get into this build update for the containment unit. This post is all about the parts we found during our absence these last few months.

We finally found the right conduit tubing in the correct sizes and patterns:

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The 1" piece is a bit more weathered then the 3/4" tube which will be taken care of with some wire pads. It'll make it look brand new again. The black tubing is for the side of the door, just above what I call the motor oil bottle. The tubing seems to match up to the screen shots.

Next, we discovered the correct lower black knob as well as finding the proper teardrop knobs. The skirts we found for them have white arrows on them and were being removed when I took the picture. That's why they're not pictured.

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Then we happened to find missing pieces for the push buttons! Luckily we found the exact vintage outer lenses for them. Thank the maker! Fabricating these out of acrylic would've been a nightmare.

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Now here's something cool. We found original colored caps and bulbs that go inside these switches. Here is your first look at what the original buttons look like inside. They sure look complicated.

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The only pieces missing are colored (Red, Yellow, Green) inner frosted lenses. These appear to be super rare. In the case we never happen upon some, our solution is to use R,Y,G light gels to slide in between the two lenses.

Finally, the jaw drop of this update:

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New old stock in unopened boxes!! Yes, we were the first ones to break the seal on these. Manufactured in 1973 and sat undisturbed in the boxes ever since. Waiting to be used for a containment unit some 40+ years later. That is until just yesterday. OMG! Can you imagine? That's like someone not knowing their worth in this world and feeling useless for all those many years. Only to find out their whole purpose was for something greater. A benefit to mankind. Hahaha!

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Look at those! Never in my life would I have ever thought i'd be so excited over some lights. One truly does suffer for their hobby. Alright, now the moment of truth. Do they fit the scale?

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Squee!! Damn straight.

One thing we noticed when putting these together.

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Notice the letters on the glass? Well, they say P.G.C.O. Now compare that to the green bulb fixture in this screenshot from the film (hi-res picture. right click mouse/view image and zoom in to see it).

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It feels great when a plan comes together. So, once we get back from picking up the red and green light bulbs from the store for these, we can get this build back on track.

Have a Murray Christmas...

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...and a Happy New Year!

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See you in 2015!
Smeghead, Kingpin, o0Ecto1A0o and 2 others liked this
#4822620
Speechless. Utterly.
User avatar
By 910dohead
#4823827
Thanks guys!

Here's a little update so far.

I went out after Christmas and found the green and red bulbs for the lamps. I was lucky enough to find them in the right configuration. The red bulb is supposed to be non-transparent and larger, while the green bulb is smaller and transparent. At first, I was concerned about the red light which has more of a dark peach color up close. However, we tested it out in a socket and was the perfect red.

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Next, I have been slowly working on replicating the signs/labels as close as possible. Here is an example of the danger sign which I am looking to have screened onto vinyl.

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Finally, we are looking into 3D printing since we are having a difficult time in finding the red knob in the correct size. It didn't occur to us to go this route until a member of the RPF graciously knocked this out for us. It needs a few tweaks to get the print spot on, but it will be a great substitute until we can find the right knob.

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That's all we have for the time being. Haven't started work on the body yet but that's coming soon.

Until next time...
o0Ecto1A0o, Glenn Frederick, Dougger and 1 others liked this
By ectotwinkie
#4826551
Hi All,

Saw you camera bellow chat - been looking into this for a while, can't quite work out for sure but could be this...

In the documentary
“ON THE SCENE WITH THE GHOSTBUSTERS”

A CIMARRON PRODUCTION in association with
SCOTT WOODWARD PRODUCTIONS

written by PAUL WALES

This appears for a split second...

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Could be it.

Need to find out where you got your red/green bulbs from - will pm
Great build!

ET
910dohead liked this
User avatar
By 910dohead
#4826574
Alex Newborn wrote:I want to see one of these ECU's in person one day.

I've got the perfect outfit to wear.

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Alex

Alex, if you ever make it out to Southern California, you have our blessing to shut down the unit. We just won't be responsible for what happens when you do. Haha! BTW, i'm envious you've been able to check out SofaKing's 1:1 Falcon cockpit build. Been following that build on therpf for a long time now. I really want to see it in person myself.
ectotwinkie wrote:Hi All,

Saw you camera bellow chat - been looking into this for a while, can't quite work out for sure but could be this...

In the documentary
“ON THE SCENE WITH THE GHOSTBUSTERS”

A CIMARRON PRODUCTION in association with
SCOTT WOODWARD PRODUCTIONS

written by PAUL WALES

This appears for a split second...

Image

Could be it.

Need to find out where you got your red/green bulbs from - will pm
Great build!

ET

OMG! The prop maker in me is dancing in circles! Great eye and awesome find!

I've watched that documentary many times and it never dawned on me what I was looking at. The thing that's so cool about that screen shot is that it leads me to believe that the ECU itself is fabricated out of wood. We had ideas of it possibly being either an industrial laundry chute (prison, ships, etc.) or an old oil can crusher, but now I heavily lean towards it being a product of Boss Films. There are a few clues that can be seen in screenshots that point to this possibility and this detail alone convinces me. I'm glad it's not an existing real world part, because I no longer have to look for it anymore. That's a big sigh of relief and makes me giggle. Now, if I can only find the door handle or those odd brackets underneath the heatsink outside of the trap housing.

If you're curious about the red/green bulbs, I got one from Lowes and the other from Home Depot. One only carried transparent color bulbs and the other solid colors. The green bulb was made by Philips and i'll have to look to see which company made the red. If you're wondering about the lamps, then please pm me.
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