#4928861
Hello everyone. It’s been a long time.

Some of you who know me may remember I made a few fiberglass shells back in 2009-2010 for a group of movie packs and eventually my Video Game version of the pack.
Image407583136fa7d1724387e0bf49340645 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr

That was back when I first moved to Huntsville, had very little money, and only an apartment to work with. Since that time I have grown pretty drastically as a prop builder, trying new materials and outfitting my house to effectively be a prop shop with a full arsenal of tools. With the announcement of the new movie and a group of friends who wanted proton packs, I decided to build a new generation of pack.
Image20190507_184138 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr

I wanted the new packs to be as light as possible and affordable, so I decided to make them vacuum formed. Using Stefan’s plans (my old versions were all Norm’s plans) I made a set of bucks out of MDF. They are not perfect to the plans because I needed the blocks to taper slightly so I could get the plastic off the bucks. Everything on the bucks are MDF, except the cyclotron washers which are 3D printed PETG.
Image20190130_205333 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr
Image20190130_205348 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr
Image20190202_103656 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr
Image20190202_110745 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr

The plastic I used is 0.09” Styrene. Its not as strong as ABS, but it forms way easier and it’s still strong. The method I found worked best to make sure the plastic came off the bucks was to coat the bucks in Vaseline prior to the pull. The result is nice, clean pulls! The two halves of the pack are bolted together, and then seems are blended with ApoxieSculpt.

Image20190314_203311 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr

My previous packs used resin greeblies. Since molding rubber is expensive I decided to make most of the greeblies 3D printed. Several parts, including the thrower, were found on Thingiverse. Most of them tough were designed by me in Fusion360 either because I couldn’t find the part online or I had a better option to make it. Most of the parts on my friend’s packs are PLA while mine is a combination of PLA and PETG. If youre curious, I use a CR-10 with Simplify3d slicing software and Hatchbox filament.
Image20191212_211342 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr
Image20190205_225833 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr
Image20190706_163039 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr

One feature I am very happy with on my pack is the Ion arm is detachable with magnets. This allows you to take it off when you need to do maintainece on the interior of the shell, and it will safely “break off” if someone pulls it preventing damage on the main pack.

Image20191213_112214 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr

For electronics I made my own lightkit using an Arduino Uno and Neopixels. Sound is provided by a Sparkfun WAV Trigger with a 20W Adafruit amp and a 10W speaker from Amazon. My pack does the basic firing sounds, but it also plays the Ghostbuster’s theme music. A volume control knob is on the back of the pack where it can be easily reached with the pack still on. Power is provided by two 12V batteries that attach to the user side of the pack. This allows them to be swapped out or charged away from the pack without having to open the shell.
Image20190707_104107 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr
Image20190707_104128 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr
Image20190507_175306 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr
Image20190719_221542 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr
Image20191206_201331 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr

The final weight of my pack came in at 18 pounds, which is about half the weight of my fiberglass game pack. This is 6th generation pack for me (7 if you count the reboot pack) and I could not be happier with how it came out.
I will put the link up for my 3D files in the near future, and if there is interest I will see about offering the shells.

Image20190721_154124 by Wayne Neumaier, on Flickr

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