[nstevic01]

This has been a long time in the making. Last year when we met the Tampa and Orlando guys I was inspired to begin my pack build. I spent the next 4 months tracking down each individual component and made a list. Once I got my Bonus and Tax return, I started placing orders.

After 9 Months of research, ordering, and waiting, I am now at a point where I can get started. The last main component I am missing is the thrower, I ordered one from CPU64 about 3 months ago so it should be close to being finished.

I would also like to say thank you to ALL of the seller's listed below, you have been awesome to deal with and I appreciate the time spent answering all of my questions. You will be the ones I point to when someone wants to build a pack. A big thank you goes to AJ for providing a easy place to get some of the specialty parts, but my bank account hates you.

I am debating on placing up my excel tracking sheet which has listed all of the parts, sellers, prices, and shipping costs to give someone new an idea of what it costs to build one from the ground up. Had I have known how much I was truly going to spend sourcing everything, I might have just bought a "starter" pack for half the cost and gone from there.

Let's just say I am now north of $2000, not including CPU64's thrower, paint, primer, filler, etc...

Parts list to date:

Real Parts:
- LC-1 Alice Pack frame and straps with correct NSN's
- Clippard R331
- Clippard R701
- Clippard brass elbows and barbs
- Dale PH-25 resistor
- Dale RH50 resistor
- Crank knob
- Sage resistor
- Arcolectric clear and red indicators
- Orange and White Hatlights

Replica Parts
- Legris straits
- Legris banjos
- SMC elbows

Vincenzo330's:
- Motherboard
- bigi330 shell
- aluminum HGA
- aluminum booster tube with plug
- aluminum n-filter
- aluminum vac line
- aluminum beam line and filler tube
- aluminum cable clamps
- aluminum injector tubes
- aluminum ppd

CPU64's:
- aluminum ion arm
- aluminum thrower set (on order)

Anhcon's:
- aluminum ion arm assembly
- aluminum v-hook
- acrylic tube w/trigger tip
- aluminum gun track
- splitless loom locking ring

jpa35's:
- aluminum shock mount (to hold me over until AJ's real bellows are done)

Nickatron's:
- booster frame
- bumper

Multimedia Mahem's:
- thrower grips
- full tubing set

GBFans':
- aluminum side knob set
- bellow replica (on waiting list)

GhostGuy's:
- Mighty Microcontroller for lights and sounds

Crix's:
- power cell and cyclotron lens set

JoeLuna33's:
- aluminum label set

gEkX's:
- hardware set

And of course the pictures, there are some missing, but this is what I have on my HD at this time. I will transfer the rest later:

[techdisaster]

Wow - this looks like it will be an amazing build. Good luck.

[Namssorg]

Exciting! Looking forward to seeing this progress. I'm always amazed at how much more organized some of you guys seem to be than I was when I started my build.

And hey- nice cooler I worked on that.

[nstevic01]

Some progress on the pack.

I started with mounting the brackets to the mother board. I traced the shell out on what was the best centering I could do. I will have to trim a little of the board towards the bottom where it does not line up just right. Once I traced the shell, I used a micrometer to measure the thickness of the pack walls where the brackets were placed and used those numbers to place the bracket.






Once I got the brackets on, I worked on tapping them to be mounted. Once I had the shell lined up on the board, I used clamps to keep the shell as flush to the board as possible while tapping.




Test fitting the shell to the board




I went with 3/8" bolts to mount the pack to the ALICE frame. Since I could not find spacers for the bolts, I picked up some steel tubing to make my own. I started with 1" spacers, but found out that GB1 packs used 1/2" spacers. So I had to cut new ones, pictures below are of the 1" ones.







Also picked up the rubber spacer that the metal one will sit inside. I will need to paint it black, but it was as close as I could find.





ALICE frame mounted to motherboard, used wing nuts to secure on the backside.






More to come!

[nstevic01]

More work done tonight. Mounted the bumper, booster frame, and PPD. I never would have thought it would take so long to get everything mounted up.

[drjameshouse]

jpa35's:
- aluminum shock mount (to hold me over until AJ's real bellows are done)

Did you buy the shock mount directly from Jason or from someone else? I have about 7 of them from Jason directly and they don't look like that. Or did you do some kind of modding to it? Both the GB1 and GB2 versions from him don't have a large hole like that, and don't require a large bolt to mount. I know you said you are replacing it so it doesn't really matter, I'm just curious.

[nstevic01]

I got it off of ebay from someone who said it was Jason's mount. I thought it looked a little off, but at the time nobody was selling them at all. I ended up only paying $15 for it so I wasn't too concerned about it. Like I said, it's more of a placeholder until I get my hands on the AJ bellow.

[IPv6Freely]

jpa35's:
- aluminum shock mount (to hold me over until AJ's real bellows are done)

Did you buy the shock mount directly from Jason or from someone else? I have about 7 of them from Jason directly and they don't look like that. Or did you do some kind of modding to it? Both the GB1 and GB2 versions from him don't have a large hole like that, and don't require a large bolt to mount. I know you said you are replacing it so it doesn't really matter, I'm just curious.

Would you consider letting one go?

[nstevic01]

Finally got some time to get the pack painted. She is fully primed and currently drying. I do not plan on weathering the pack just yet, I'd like to enjoy the fresh off the workbench for a bit. But to give myself the option for weathering, what type of silver paint is being used as an undercoat?

[nstevic01]

Still working on the painting, I'm finishing it off with satin black but I can not seem to get a perfect coat on it. There are areas that don't look as dark as others. So a few more coats should do it.

In the mean time, I am working on a little something for the XLR/Switch panel. Since I am getting the Mighty Microcontroller for the lights and sounds, I figured I would wire up the XLR connector for USB connection and use the DC barrel plug for charging. I ordered up a Switchcraft 4 pin socket and a female 4 pin connector.

[nstevic01]

Panel is done!! Best part is that it works!

[westies14]

Awesome!!!

[nstevic01]

Finally got the painting done, on to some assembly...

[nstevic01]

Little more work tonight. I tore apart an oil filter and took the bottom plate out, then welded it inside the N-filter. I will be using this to attach and detach the N-filter. Reasoning behind this, is a "reveal" N-fitler. I'm not 100% on the internal design, but I wanted to make something that could possible represent what was meant to be there. So I will be studying Nitrogen and Liquid Nitrogen filter designs and come up with something that is visually appealing.




Started closing off the N-filter mounting area and will be working on the pole that the filter will mount on.




That's it for now

[Alan Hawkins]

MIND. BLOWN.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Ghostbusters Fans on Android

[westies14]

I have a question for you! What is the center jack, next to the Switchcraft XLR?

[nstevic01]

Standard DC power jack (Size M). It will be wired for charging the pack battery.

[dhammans]

I did a google image search for liquid nitrogen filter, and on the third row is your picture above of the inside of the N-Filter. Looks like your off to a good start

[Aaron Norton]

Some very smart ideas in this thread. Very smart.

[nstevic01]

Just got back from Home Depot....should have the mock up in a couple of days.

As far as the filtration goes, this was one of the only filters I was able to find. Apparently it's not very common to filter LN.



For those interested in specs:

As a check filter for a process line with liquid nitrogen, we have designed a special filter housing that contains a pleated FUJIPLATE filter element.
The housing has 1/2 Clamps and a surface polishing of Ra 0.8.
Operating temp : -196°C to +30°C
Operating pressure : 0 to 10 bar

While researching the properties of LN, I came across this:

Since the liquid to gas expansion ratio of nitrogen is 1:694 at 20 °C (68 °F), a tremendous amount of force can be generated if liquid nitrogen is rapidly vaporized.

So if I am understanding this correctly, in the event of pack components overheating and causing the LN to expand, there would need to be some sort of venting system in place for safety. Probably why the VG Pack has the ability to do so.

This of course gives me the excuse to rig up an emergency venting system, which will be vented through the N-Filter holes. I already have an idea of how I will do it. A guy building an R2 unit came up with the idea, and it apparently works well. The mighty microcontroller should be easy enough to program the solenoid to work with the fore-button on the barrel. Link to his blog if you want to check it out: http://vfranco.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html

[nstevic01]

A quick teaser for you guys....I still need to work up the filter element and sprayer but here is the beginnings of the mount. It will be riveted to the motherboard and will require that the filter be unscrewed to disassemble the pack.

[ProtonCharger]

this just became my favorite build ever. this was a ridiculously hard feat to master, but you did.

keep up the good work!

[nstevic01]

this just became my favorite build ever. this was a ridiculously hard feat to master, but you did.

keep up the good work!

ProtonCharger likes my pack.....this pleases me...

[Vincenzo330]

This is legendary, dude! I can't wait to see that puppy in action. I think this is definitely the best build on a Bigi330 shell yet

Just a quick thing I noticed, the wing nut you're using for the upper ALICE frame mount might end up clashing with your ribbon cable and making it hard to close your shell. You might want to try a flush nut or something that takes up less real estate.



Also, I used the same configuration for my top spacer but I filled it around the tubing with plumbers epoxy putty

[Stroudy]

Nice build. Keep going dude!

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Ghostbusters Fans on Android

[nstevic01]

Thanks for all the support guys!! I will have a few updates a little later. I got the post mounted to the board, turns out it was able to be attached via the wingnut for the ALICE frame. So I drilled three small holes for nothing. Gotta fill those in. But I am now working on the tubing for the ventilation system.

[nstevic01]

Just a quick thing I noticed, the wing nut you're using for the upper ALICE frame mount might end up clashing with your ribbon cable and making it hard to close your shell. You might want to try a flush nut or something that takes up less real estate.
Also, I used the same configuration for my top spacer but I filled it around the tubing with plumbers epoxy putty

The wingnut is actually low profile enough to clear the shell, I've worn it around the house when nobody was looking a few times. Hehehe, as for the top spacer, I was thinking about that but it compresses a bit with I put it on there. I have yet to put in on after painting it, i hope the paint doesn't crack.


On to the updates for today's work:

So here is the completed mock-up with the filter off:



Filter on:



I am thinking about painting the whole rig chrome, to kinda represent the polished look of the actual LN Filter I posted earlier. Let me know what you guys think.

Mounted to the motherboard:



Cover on:



With the shell:




And of course the mock-up for the venting system. I used the smallest copper tubing I could find, and will be drilling tiny holes in the "ring" which will line up with the vents on the N-Filter. I will be digging out some old R/C car servos I have in the shed and will use those for controlling the venting.

[westies14]

Whaaaat! Too awesome.

[jros3484]

Please put videos up when this thing is operational! This is unreal.

[Silverstreak]

This is going to be great.