It’s really quite unfortunate that Hackaday/Supplyframe employees and their families are not allowed to place in the 2023 Halloween Hackfest, because our own [Tom Nardi] has thrown down a costume gauntlet with his kids’ proton pack conversion.

Starting with an inert off-the-shelf toy from 2021, [Tom] set out to make the thing more awesome in every way possible. For one thing, it’s blue, and outside of the short-lived animated series The Real Ghostbusters, who ever heard of a blue proton pack? So one major change was to paint it matte black and age it with the old silver rub ‘n buff technique. And of course, add all the necessary stickers.

[Tom] added plenty of blinkenlights, all running off of an Arduino Nano clone and a pair of 18650s. He got lucky with the whole power cell thing, because an 8 x 5050 RGB LED stick fits there perfectly and looks great behind a PETG diffusing lens. He also drilled out and lit up the cyclotron, because what’s a proton pack without that? There’s even a 7-segment LED voltmeter so Dad can check the power level throughout the night.

Finally, he had to do a bit of engineering to make the thing actually wearable by his daughter. A frame made of square aluminium tubing adds strength, and a new pair of padded straps make it comfortable. Be sure to check it out in action after the break.

What’s a Ghostbusters costume without a PKE meter? 

"Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back." That could be you with this DIY Ghostbusters Proton Pack!

Read more on MAKE

The post Check Out This Amazing Ghostbusters Proton Pack appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

Anyone who has ever watched Ghostbusters is surely familiar with the iconic proton pack–a handheld wand connected to a backpack-sized particle accelerator used for capturing ghosts. With a remake of the ‘80s flick about to hit theaters, what better time for a DIY prop equipped with full-featured user control and Hollywood-like effects?

That’s exactly what John Finocchiaro has done using a bunch of household items, including a five gallon bucket for the cyclotron, a garlic powder container for the N-Filter, a hairbrush for the PKE meter, spark plug wire, cardboard tubes, pill bottles, handles from power tool cases, a couple electrical boxes, and some other miscellaneous parts.

The proton pack is based on an Arduino Uno along with a Seeed Studio SD card shield containing .WAV files. The Arduino supplies all of the sound and light effects, except for the cyclotron lights which use a 555 timer and 4017 decade counter. The sound is amplified through an old computer speaker board, while two homemade boards control the lights.

The red lights on the cyclotron area are supposed to be asymmetrical. This project took two weekends to make, one for the pack and one for the gun. It is attached to a homemade  PVC “ALICE” frame. I tried to make it as light as possible, the whole unit weighs just 13 lbs. Its not fully “screen accurate” but more like a “Model 3″ version. The addition of a bunch of actual electronic components make it look more like it is a  functional unit instead of a prop.

The power meter on the gun and pack are synced to show an accumulating “charge” while a generator sound plays. When armed, the lights on the gun blink and the generator sound intensifies. When it’s fired, the barrel lights and the blast sound plays as the charge meter decreases to zero. It then shuts off and recharges.

Anyone who has ever watched Ghostbusters is surely familiar with the iconic proton pack–the combination of a handheld wand and backpack-sized particle accelerator that’s the weapon of choice for weakening ghosts and aiding in capturing them. And with a remake of the ‘80s flick coming out in a few days, what better time for a DIY prop equipped with full-featured user control and Hollywood-like effects?

That’s exactly what John Fin has done using a bunch of household items, including a five gallon bucket for the cyclotron, a garlic powder container for the N-Filter, a hairbrush for the PKE meter, as well as spark plug wire, cardboard tubes, pill bottles, handles from power tool cases, and a couple electrical boxes and miscellaneous parts.

The proton pack is based on an Arduino Uno along with a Seeed Studio SD card shield containing .WAV files. The Arduino supplies all of the sound and light effects, except for the cyclotron lights which use a 555 timer and 4017 decade counter. The sound is amplified through an old computer speaker board, while two homemade boards control the lights.

The red lights on the cyclotron area are supposed to be asymmetrical. This project took two weekends to make, one for the pack and one for the gun. It is attached to a homemade  PVC “ALICE” frame. I tried to make it as light as possible, the whole unit weighs just 13 lbs. Its not fully “screen accurate” but more like a “Model 3″ version. The addition of a bunch of actual electronic components make it look more like it is a  functional unit instead of a prop.

The power meter on the gun and pack are synced to show an accumulating “charge” while a generator sound plays. When armed, the lights on the gun blink and the generator sound intensifies. When it’s fired, the barrel lights and the blast sound plays as the charge meter decreases to zero. It then shuts off and recharges.

[John Fin] put a lot of work into his Ghostbuster’s proton pack prop with full-featured user control and effects. What appealed to us well beyond the exquisite build is the extra effort taken to write down the whole process in a PDF for anyone wishing to imitate him.

We all know that a lot of famous props are creatively rearranged household items. The famous Mr. Fusion from Back to The Future is actually a Krups coffee grinder with some logos adhered.

[John]’s prop is no different. The cyclotron is a five gallon bucket. A garlic powder container fills another function. As you look at it more and more items can be picked out. Is that a spark plug wire? The handles on that are suspiciously similar to a power tool case’s. It all comes together, and while it’s not screen accurate you’d have to be an extreme prop fanatic to tell.

Naturally, the core of [John]’s prop is an Arduino. It stores the sound files on a SD Card shield. It controls all the lights sounds and motors on the prop. This isn’t quite a point and shoot. You must toggle on the power, generator, and arming mechanisms before actually firing. If you do it out of order, the electronics will issue an alarm as warning, and each step in the process has its own unique audio and animated lighting.

Since the Proton Pack went so well, he also built a PKE meter and Ghost Trap to go along with his backpack. He’s ready to take on Vigo at anytime. You can see a video of his prop in action after the break.

Have some .40 cal shell casings sitting around with nothing to do? How about some bullet earbuds? If you’ve ever wondered about the DIY community over at imgur, the top comment, by a large margin, is, “All of these tools would cost so much more than just buying the headphones”

Here’s something [Lewin] sent in. It’s a USB cable, with a type A connector on one end, and a type A connector on the other end. There is no circuitry anywhere in this cable. This is prohibited by the USB Implementors Forum, so if you have any idea what this thing is for, drop a note in the comments.

Attention interesting people in Boston. There’s a lecture series this Tuesday on Artificial Consciousness and Revolutionizing Medical Device Design. This is part two in a series that Hackaday writer [Gregory L. Charvat] has been working with. Talks include mixed signal ASIC design, and artificial consciousness as a state of matter. Free event, open bar, and you get to meet (other) interesting people.

Ghostbusters. It’s the 30th anniversary, and to celebrate the event [Luca] is making a custom collectors edition with the BluRay and something very special: the Lego ECTO-1.

Let’s say you need to store the number of days in each month in a program somewhere. You could look it up in the Time Zone Database, but that’s far too easy. How about a lookup table, or just a freakin’ array with 12 entries? What is this, amateur hour? No, the proper way of remembering the number of days in each month is some bizarre piece-wise function. It is: f(x) = 28 + (x + ⌊^x⁄₈⌋) mod 2 + 2 mod x + 2 ⌊¹⁄_x⌋. At least the comments are interesting.

Arduinos were sold in the 70s! Shocking, yes, but don’t worry, time travel was involved. Here’s a still from Predestination, in theatres Jan 9, rated R, hail corporate.