With the birth of new products in the 1980s, people’s interest in old toys may rekindle, but the interest in new products in the 1980s is not all. Of course, for people like us, this means that more hardware needs to be cracked.
In a recent post on the official Ghostbusters YouTube channel, professional prop manufacturer [Ben Eadie] showed some trading skills. He took a $15 “PKE meter” toy from Hasbro and turned it into a screen prop. Even if you don’t want to start Halloween costumes early, the technology shown in this video can be easily applied to other projects. For those whose next ideal home decoration is fireman poles and stellar laser constrained grids, you may want to buy a few of these toys while they are still cheap for final modification.
Uncovering the silver will make the dress look shabby.
The biggest benefit from the video may be finishing techniques, because they can be used for any type of real prop production. [Ben] first smooth the lines on the plastic toy with a cabinet scraper, and then fill all the holes with the familiar trick of baking soda and cyanoacrylate glue. After surface treatment, all main parts will be sprayed with adhesion promoter, then coated with a layer of silver and finally black.
This enabled him to create a convincing “notched paint” effect by strategically grinding or scraping the top coat. Before applying the last coat, apply some toothpaste where you want the equipment to look worn. This will make the process faster because it will first prevent the top coat from sticking to the silver.
Unfortunately [Ben] didn’t spend much time explaining the electronic aspects of things, but it didn’t seem that anything too complicated happened. All original devices have been stripped and replaced by a microcontroller, which we believe is adafruit itsybitsy nrf52840 express. This is connected to two tiny apa102 addressable led strings that extend along the “wings” (we particularly like the 3D print lens used to replace the original solid PIP), and one to provide an iconic sine wave display.
Although the last PKE instrument we saw did detect radiation, we have to admit that this one occupies the first place in terms of appearance. Especially when you think about how cheap it is. All you need now is a proton pack and you’re ready for Halloween.