I have made several props and prop reproductions over the years, but I have to say that creating a 1:1 replica of the 2016 Ghostbusters Movie Proton Pack was one of the most ambitious undertakings that I ever got myself into.
I made the proton pack for my daughter to wear on Halloween. She was in her junior year in high school at the time and wanted a costume that stood-out.
What made this build difficult was that the movie had not come out yet, so references were very scarce. I found a few photos on a couple torrent sites and screen captured blurry images from a couple movie promos.
Scavenging parts was very difficult. I made many of the parts on my 3D printer and incorporated three Arduino controllers to run the lights, sound effects and countdown sequencers.
The photos below highlight the end result. In the future I will try to post a video that shows off its sounds and lighting.
The photo below is of a last-minute proton pack that I made for one of my daughter’s friends. It was a much simpler build that is modeled very roughly off of a pack I had seen in the 1986 – 1991 animated series, The Real Ghostbusters.
The pack has a rotating beacon of lights within the large dome as well as a simple sound effects board. This pack only took an afternoon to build.
