Our flux capacitor...

lharles

Sr Member
This is the second most recent thing I've finished for our 'Museum of Fictional Artifacts'. It turned out way better than I ever would have expected.

https://tinyurl.com/ycrst3jh

As always, I hope it amuses folks.

:)

{...& I'm done for now. :) I'll put more up later, if I'm not annoyin' the snot out of folks. }
 
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It's currently the room which you enter by way of our T.A.R.D.I.S., (http://www.therpf.com/f9/our-t-r-d-i-s-143250/), & which houses all of the stuff I've made, (about a dozen things at this point - & I've got a list of about 60 more, I'd like to make &/or acquire), &/or purchased. All of the stuff in the room is based on fictional characters or items from movies, television, video games, (http://www.therpf.com/f9/our-portal-companion-cube-143251/), etc.

When the room is finished, (which is probably another couple months away - if I'm lucky), I'll post copious pictures.

Other things in the room, (some of it is stuff that I've made, I'll eventually put in a thread here...I've been lurking for a long time but decided to finally actively join in... :) ), are:

"Ghostbusters" ghost trap, (from Matty Collector), Darth Vader helmet, Indy fertility idol, "Goonies" Cobblepot key & coin, Jim Rockford's cookie jar, custom "Crash Davis" baseball card, (this is still in the prototype stage - I've made several of them, but I'm still trying to come up with accurate stats for the back...my buddy who was supposed to help me with that bit has been less than helpful... :) ), Connor/Ramirez's katana from "Highlander", "X-Files" wallets/badges/IDs, ...& a bunch of other stuff.

Hope that clarifies - "Museum of Fictional Artifacts" a bit. :D
What is this? Sounds intriguing...
 
After the companion cube, I built the T.A.R.D.I.S....& then the flux capacitor. I considered, for a little while, mounting the flux capacitor in the T.A.R.D.I.S. & putting up a sign saying something like "Powered by Flux Capacitor". :)

That is an awesome build! I have always wanted a flux capacitor because its so iconic in the films.
 
Nice!

BTW, TARDIS is an acronym; the gods of orthography won't dock you for leaving out the '.' after each letter. ;)
 
We have watched 2/3 of the series over the last couple of days, one of my favourite sci fi movies. Have been telling my 10 year old daughter (who by the way loves the Terminator movies - go figure) that she should watch BTTF but she has maintained it was stupid. We put it on the other night and she watched it and at 10.30pm when the first one was over and she had spent the time glued to the TV and started begging to watch the second one, I knew she was hooked (a few "I told you so" moments there).

I think it would be cool to make the Doc's metal sunglasses from BTTF2.
 
The sunglasses would be cool. :)

We have watched 2/3 of the series over the last couple of days, one of my favourite sci fi movies. Have been telling my 10 year old daughter (who by the way loves the Terminator movies - go figure) that she should watch BTTF but she has maintained it was stupid. We put it on the other night and she watched it and at 10.30pm when the first one was over and she had spent the time glued to the TV and started begging to watch the second one, I knew she was hooked (a few "I told you so" moments there).

I think it would be cool to make the Doc's metal sunglasses from BTTF2.
 
Is this made completely from found parts? It's spot on. This is definitely going on my short list. I'm loving your choice of props. I think we may have the same mindset about props, I'm all about making them all myself. Never buy any. I just started a goonies doubloon, if you have any tips for me please weigh in on the thread, I'd definitely like to hear your opinion or see more pictures of your work.
 
First of all, thanks for the kind words, 'DeadRinger'. :)
On to the prop stuff...

#1 -----------------------------
Our flux capacitor is made from some found parts, but some stuff is pretty specific to the design so I tried hard to get those parts that I could.

The hardest parts were the enclosure & the lighting methodology. The enclosure I used is a Stahlin J1210HPL as the original is an enclosure that isn't readily available & costs $50-75 more than the enclosure I used. I wound up purchasing a lot of several of the J1210HPLs from a government auction after having spent several weeks trying to source it for a reasonable cost from sellers/resellers. It had to be painted to get the color to match the original & the window had to be cut/gasketed/placed manually. I purchased roughly 30 feet of the window gasket from a vendor for roughly the same price as other outlets were selling 3-4 foot stretches of the same stuff. As for the the lighting methodology, I did a lot of research trying to find a circuit to match the lighting, dug in a bit on building my own circuit, and thought of building it without any sort of lighting before I happened upon a simple, effective & economical choice...battery operated, multi-function holiday LED lights. :) When the lighting is turned on, the selector has to be pushed several times to get to the right cycle but it works wonderfully.

The rest of the box was sort of stumbled upon/devised along the way. I'll try to detail that...

High voltage relay tubes were replicated with a combination of acrylic tubing & shapes from online vendors & my local TAP plastics. I shaped them to the lengths/looks I found at various locations on the web. The metal cores of the tubes were...lengths of wire hangers. :)

The bases of the high voltage relays were an interesting process. I had purchased a set of bases online, made of resin from a person who'd made a flux capacitor of their own. I felt certain I'd seen something similar to the size & shape of these before. I ultimately found that my local hardware store carried flat, PVC end caps which were identical in diameter & within 1/16th of an inch in height. I used the PVC end caps, (really, I was worried I'd screw up & wanted the resin bases to fall back on), in place of the resin bases. I sanded them down directionally to give them a brushed metal look, painted them with plastic primer then brass/gold paint.

The little terminals on the bases were hard to figure out because there didn't seem to be any specific name for them. I finally stumbled upon the name & purchased 'tip jacks' from Talon Electronics. I mounted those & the bits of wire on top of the bases then used epoxy putty to mount bolts on the inside of the bases so that I could bolt them down to the back/base plate for the internals of the flux capacitor.

For the base plate, I purchased a couple black 1/8" x 12" x 10" sheets of plastic from TAP & shaped one by hand to fit the opening of the enclosure. Then I used cardboard to prototype the locations for the relays/tubes/plastic strips under the tubes, (also sourced from TAP), and transferred all of that to the black plastic once I had it done properly.

Finally, I bolted down the relays/plastic strips & hot glued the LEDs through the back of the plastic.

The stuff on the outside are PVC fixtures plastic primed & painted with different colors of hammered metal paint, super glued to the exterior of the enclosure.

I wound up with a LOT of extra bits & pieces from this build which I hope to be able to trade/sell once I've been on the forum long enough, with enough posts, (& I absolutely won't discuss or entertain any trading/selling until I've reached the required time/posts - as I don't want to violate the rules & plan to be round' here for quite a while - :) ).
#2 -----------------------------
The 'Goonies' doubloon & key. Not to be disappointing but I purchased these for about $15 bucks a while back. After I started to dig in on building all these props, I found that these were not as accurate as I might like. I'll probably make new ones or rework these somewhere along the line as a result.

I may wind up using YOUR doubloon thread as reference! :)

I am putting together a map from 'The Goonies' though. Since most folks who have put these together don't offer them up free of charge, (understandably so), I'm doing my best to assemble a nice one from all the bits I can find on the web & here on the forum.
Is this made completely from found parts? It's spot on. This is definitely going on my short list. I'm loving your choice of props. I think we may have the same mindset about props, I'm all about making them all myself. Never buy any. I just started a goonies doubloon, if you have any tips for me please weigh in on the thread, I'd definitely like to hear your opinion or see more pictures of your work.
 
The spark plug boots, is that what you're referencing? :) {Took me forever to find THOSE! :confused}

EDIT:

Just occurred to me...you probably mean the elbows on the exterior. :) I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer...


Nice work, you can always improve the accuracy on that sucker though. Some accurate elbows will make a world of difference.
 
The spark plug boots, is that what you're referencing? :) {Took me forever to find THOSE! :confused}

EDIT:

Just occurred to me...you probably mean the elbows on the exterior. :) I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer...

Haha, nah, easy mistake to make. Your Flux looks great. Enjoy it! if you ever want to improve it...there are ways. :)
 
Awesome, thanks for the detailed info, I think we have a TAP plastics here on Long Island. I wouldn't advise using my sculpt as a reference, I'm still really new to modeling/sculpting and my screen accuracy suffers due to my lack of skills, but I am getting better! If you PM me your email address, I can send you my Goonies reference zip file. There are some map files that are hard to find, that may help you. I have a big roll of kraft paper, I'm still trying to figure out how to print onto it though, I may silkscreen the map onto it. And, once again, im so jealous of your flux capacitor, you may hear from me when I start mine!

Also, I'll be watching for when you become a full member, I'd like to scoop up some of your extra parts.
 
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The sunglasses would be cool. :)

They would. But then I'd need a delorean to wear them in. Could get expensive. Oh well. Gotta have a dream. I once thought about a BTTF inspired 70's land rover, doing the brushed raw metal finish on the aluminium body to get a similar look ( a deLandrover) but unfortunately nobody would believe it possible to reach 88mph!
 
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