[Holydohnut]

Hi all! Like many here I'm eagerly awaiting March when my Haslab pack will be winging its way to me in the mail! (Allowing for chip shortages, pandemics, postal strikes, wars, dogs and cats living together, and mass hysteria) However between now and then lies Halloween, and my daughter has never been more in to ghostbusters than she is at the moment and is desperate for us both to go as Ghostbusters. So much so that a couple of weeks ago she raided the recycling for cardboard and has started making a proton pack entirely of her own design.

So now I need one as well, but with the Haslab pack on its way, I don't really want to invest a huge amount in it. My issue is that I am physically unable to do anything half throttle. When I made my trap and PKE meter, I not only re-designed a lot of the 3D printed items, I also taught myself micropython so I could use a raspberry pi pico to control them! While I started out thinking, ahh I'll just use cardboard and approximate size food containers, I then started looking at plans and getting frustrated that I can't get imperial size pipe in the UK coz we're all metric, and how do you get an appropriate sized radius on the crank generator, and, and.....

Anyway! After a LOT of thought, I've decided to make a pack of many colours, (materials) I intend to make the motherboard out of plywood, the gun box from solid wood, the main construction out of foam board, and as many of the greeblies as I can will be 3D printed. Lights will once again be powered by a raspberry pi pico. It really is going to be a bitsa!

If anyone has any suggestions or warnings of issues I'm likely to experience along the way, I'd love to hear them! Constructive criticism welcome too!

Just so this can be a WIP post, here's my very first item off the printer! (Along with a few penny falls prizes from my recent holiday!)

Cheers all!

Rik,

[deadderek]

If you're on Facebook, don't forget to join the Haslab pack group!

https://facebook.com/groups/haslabprotonpackmodders/

[Holydohnut]

Thanks! I'll take a look!

[tobycj]

Ebay is your friend for imperial sizes of aluminium tubing over here, you should be able to get everything on there. Any you can't get there, then try clickmetal.co.uk

[Holydohnut]

That site is fantastic! I confess, I never thought aluminium would be so reasonable! I'd been looking for PVC! Thanks!

[Holydohnut]

Few more bits ready. A very passable facsimile of a clippard valve and a crank knob! I'm going to leave this black as I'm not investing enough into the pack to make it specifically GB1 or GB2. (plus black helps hide the layer lines!) A bitsa like I said!



And with that in mind, the postie brought my generic ribbon cable and clip! (Thought they were on strike today???)

[Holydohnut]

Resistors and other greeblies. With a first pass of paint on the straight legris connectors

[Holydohnut]

Well.... I've had a complete change of heart! (Surprising no one!) I've been really impressed with how the 3D prints have been coming from the Qpack files and while it'd be cheaper and quicker to still use foam for the larger bits, I've decided to go full 3D! Just ordered 3kg of Geeetech silver filament (one of my preferred brands!) for less than £30 which should be more than enough. Now the race is on to get everything printed on time! (I believe some of the larger pieces that up to 24 hours each!

In the meanwhile, I've started the bumper printing overnight! This is gonna be fun!

[Holydohnut]

I know I should be waiting until my silver filament arrives, but I can't help myself! It's so awesome seeing some of these instantly recognisable parts rising from my print beds!



I've also transferred the motherboard template on to some paper ready to cut out of plywood at the weekend.

Is it the weekend yet?

[jonogunn]

Nice work! But you’re not planning to sand them?

[Holydohnut]

Certain parts I plan to fill/sand. The bumper and any other bits that have a visible join really. But I'm not going mad. I will definitely be getting a filler primer and some truck bed spray for painting it up.

If you're wondering about the "waiting for my silver filament" that was just that I got 3KG of it for a bargain price, so I wanted to use that rather than my other colours!

Also.... It turned up!



So now I can have both printers going.

These therefore are the last bits printed in the black.



Can you tell what it is yet?

[Holydohnut]

Had my first print failure this morning :'( the cyclotron is split into 4 pieces and prints with a central support "ring" seems that broke off the print bed about 3 hours into the print. Sigh.

Rest looks good though!

[Holydohnut]

Been a while since the last update. Most of the prints have been coming out great (just taking time!) but there's one particular part that keeps failing on me. And I can't see why! So while I try yet another variation on the slicing, I decided to wire up some lights. Once again I turned to a trusty Raspberry Pi Pico, and for an hour of coding and less than £5, I came up with a sequence I'm happy with. When you switch it on, it randomly plays one of three start up sequences, and then the standard rotation begins. To improve the look of both the power cell and the cyclotron lights, I cut some perspex up to put in the lenses and gave them a super light sanding to make them diffuse the light more. Kinda hard to see on video, but looks much better in person. I'm undecided on whether to add any red acetate to the cyclotron lights. It doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. I did add two layers of blue to the power cell. That looks really good! I also designed and printed the holders myself, and the ones with the qpack didn't fit what I wanted to do.

Anyway! Enough talk! Video!

[halliwax]

seriously great prints!

[Holydohnut]

Thank you! And now they're complete!



The only pieces now missing are the shock mount, and the ribbon cable clip, because I'm going to try and source them in metal. But she's ready to fill, prime, and paint!

[jonogunn]

Any reason why you are printing with a brim?

3d printer novice here.

Also I notice that some of your prints look like in bad shape and I mean no offense by that I’m still learning about 3D printing. I am wondering if I’m obsessing too much over getting near perfect prints or as long as I print something decent then it’s good enough

[Holydohnut]

Back again! Well I'm sad to say, the wheels kinda fell off my wagon. A few weeks ago I got very sick, had an ambulance ride to hospital and ended up there for a week. Given that, obviously pack building stopped completely, and now that I'm, (just about) on the other side, I realise I have VERY little time to get this finished if it's going to be ready for Halloween. (And if it's not, it's kinda pointless, given that the haslab pack will hopefully arrive by next Halloween!)

So this weekend I have put in a massive effort to make progress! And my standards have been lowered considerably! Items are glued when they could be screwed, and painted when they could be printed. Bolts and fixings are, "whatever my wife could find in our local DIY store" rather than being screen accurate. (And I'm super grateful to her for going!)

Mostly I'm pretty stoked with where I'm up to given the circumstances. Best part is the truck bed liner spray paint. It really has hidden all the imperfections! Worst part, I'm SERIOUSLY annoyed as I've just noticed that after putting some actual effort into filling the bumper with plastic specific, very expensive filler, it's clearly shrunk overnight and you can see the join again! Don't get me wrong, little on here is perfect, but that looked really good last night! Blimmin Halfords... Sigh...

There's still a lot to do, but here's some pics!



Banksy woz 'ere




Missing stickers, the ribbon cable clip, and weathering.


And with the lights!



Next comes the motherboard, and however I'm going to get around not wanting to pay £97 for an alice frame. Lost wax, I may be looking at you!

[Holydohnut]

Well! I made it! All but the weathering!



For my final additions I've added a powered speaker to the pack the plugs into the wand, (because outside you can barely hear the wand on its own!) and wired the pack lights up to the 1st wand switch, so the pack comes on when you power the wand on.

It's been a fun build! Not sure where to go from here!