Proton Pack

My first attempt at a proton pack, using a Studio Creations pack shell, a MMM wand kit, resin pack parts from nick-a-tron and Sevv, fantastic pack labels/decals from theonlytexaspete, and machined shock mount/regulators/gun details from Evolution Props. The motherboard is 2mm aluminium sheet cut by hand, with 50mm L brackets tapped to accept 6mm allen screws. Screen accuracy wasn't a priority, but visual impact was. Extra lighting has been incorporated into the build, including blue LED powercell lights driven by a 12 segment VU meter circuit so it is sound reactive. Cyclotron lights are 10mm LEDs on a simple chaser circuit, with strobe tubes added for extra flash when the pack is fired. Another 8 LEDs are fitted behind aluminium mesh inside the N Filter, also on a chaser/flash circuit, the circuit PCBs are from ebay seller 'hobbykitbg' from Belgium. I am currently tinkering with a mini fog generator made from a small PC fan and some toaster element wire to place inside the N Filter. The plan is to thread 1.3mm EL wire through all the coloured hoses so they glow from the inside, these will also be sound reactive. The intention for the wand is to have superbright LEDs in the gun barrel, and stacked orange rectangular LEDs for the bargraph, driven by Velleman PCB kits. For the pack audio, I shall be using a 2.1 amplifier hooked up to a pair of 4 inch 40 watt speakers and a 5.25 inch Wharfedale subwoofer, with pack sounds supplied by a Replica Props 4M sound chip. All this is powered by a 7Ah Yuasu alarm battery, and controlled via switches on the wand, including a couple of hidden switches for the extra light circuits and fog generator. At the moment it is all 'work in progress' but I intend to have it up and running by Halloween. UPDATE Finally got the pack finished at 6.30pm on Halloween night! Was a lot of intense work as I'd lost several days of possible build time to illness and work commitments. Some changes to the original plan had to be made, the subwoofer was discarded as the 2.1 amplifier did not arrive from the suppliers in time and was substituted by a Radiomobile 2x40watt car amp driving the 4" speakers. Also the strobe tubes in the cyclotron wouldn't fit correctly into the reflector housings so were also discarded. The fog generator needed some more work which I just didnt have time for so this was left off for now but is still an ongoing project. The EL wire wasn't quite long enough to reach all the pack hoses, so I stuck a superbright white 5mm LED into the end of each of the hoses coming from the injector tubes, which gave a similar glowing effect. UPDATE 2 The 2.1 amplifier has finally arrived so I shall be working to get that fitted and trying to find a suitable spot for the sub speaker, which is now a 4" bass cone from a Creative Labs PC subwoofer box, saving some space over the 5.25" Wharfedale originally intended. Also I have replaced the chaser circuit board that was driving the cyclotron lights as the Velleman one kept 'locking up' and became annoying, this has been changed to a similar PCB as used in my N Filter, obtained from ebay seller 'hobbykitbg'. I have also ordered another run of EL wire to complete the illumination of all the pack hoses. UPDATE 3 The changes to the audio system were scrapped as the 2.1 amplifier was a pile of junk, so the Radiomobile one originally fitted will remain in place, with no subwoofer. After sorting a permanent location on my living room wall for my pack, I realised that I could not reach it to operate any of the functions, so I have ordered a 12 channel wireless remote unit to fit inside the pack, that will give me full wireless control of all the pack sounds and lights! More on the installation of this unit when it arrives. UPDATE 4 I have now fitted EL wire to all the coloured pack hoses, resulting in a stunning glowing effect. I am now trying to get EL wire into the hoses on the wand but this is proving tricky! The remote pack arrived and seemed to be just what I needed. However, I had to modify some of the circuitry so two relays would activate with a single press of a button on the remote handset instead of just one, this was to allow simultaneous switching of the 12v pack lights and the 3v sound chip. I had to also set the board controller to have six of the channels as 'momentary' action and the other six as 'toggle', so I could use the remote to switch the pack on and off, and also use it to make the pack fire and vent. After much fiddling around with wires from the wand, the sound chip and inside the cyclotron, I found that the remote would operate the pack lights no problems, but the remote would only activate the 'pack start' and 'firing' sounds. The 'pack shutdown' and 'thrower shutdown' sounds would not work, nor would the venting and humming sounds. I worked out the problem to be the switches on the gun body overriding the remote switching pack, so I am now working on integrating a four-pole switch into the gun body so I can disable the gun mounted switches in favour of the remote switching system, and vice-versa. I shall post more info on this when I have it.