Geeked Out at 1:00am

It’s now 2:30am Saturday morning and I’m finally getting home to get some sleep. Soon, anyway. I was with Jeff McClure working on a Ghostbusters Proton Pack replica. He got some new parts for it and had since lost the sound and light synchronization. I wasn’t sure what I was in for, but Jeff pulled out a wad of wires, circuit boards, and LED’s tangled into a complex piece of machinery that was the Proton Pack. Using a multimeter and some cryptic diagrams from Hyperdyne Labs, the maker of the electronics for this prop, I slowly began figuring out how everything was supposed to be powered. After two days of working with this thing and one very long night, we finally got it working and we were able to start blasting various appliances in the kitchen. The whole kit is really impressive. When I get some pictures and video, I’ll post them. As it is, the pack is still in many pieces and only temporarily wired. I have a few questions left before we seal it back up. We should have the pack together by DragonCon in a couple of weeks.

Playing around with this high tech toy was really a lot of fun. It has been a long time since I was playing with circuit boards and the soldering iron. It really got my brain churning on some ideas, though I tend to be more interested in creating unique costume props rather than screen-accurate ones. Unfortunately, the market for such things are more interested in screen-accuracy; you can’t sell custom stuff until you make a name for yourself as a replica designer. Bleh. Oh well, I’m all geeked out this weekend.

2 comments

  1. Yes- but does it CATCH ghosts? I know you guys are tired of that question, but I think it should probably be the most important aspect of the project to keep in mind as you attempt to make it work.

  2. Clearly you are unfamiliar with the technology. In order to catch the ghosts, one must also utilize a ghost containment trap. Since ghosts’ ionization rates are constant, one can surmise that perpetual containment is possible, but only with a significant power source capable of maintaining the containment field around a ghost’s negatively charged ions. The Proton Pack and wand is capable of generating the field temporarily, but it’s only to hold and direct a ghost into a temporary containment trap until such time that they can be emptied into a larger containment unit later.

    On another, more practical note, the Proton Pack could potentially be used to fry zombies. A positively charged ion storm such as that produced by the wand is capable of small-scale damage to physical entities and substances. Possibly from the small-scale fission that occurs when the unstable field hits molecular (non-ghost) targets and excites their atoms to fissile state. This is the probable analysis because of the obvious blue light emitted around the ion beam itself; a condition known to occur when oxygen and nitrogen atoms are excited in the surrounding air (e.g. lightning).

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