[EctoRalph]

Hi all, this will be my ecto goggle build thread. A little history; I originally purchased a set of matty goggles and was soo sorely disappointed. IMO they do not stack up to the amazing trap and PKE meter, those items blew me away when I unboxed them, but the goggles to me seem way small, cheap and toy like.

In an effort to make them look better before last Halloween I did a rush job on spray painting them but knew they just didn't seem right. I have a set of functional PVS-5s, that I think play the part real well but they are way too heavy to wear to a convention or event. So I set out to find a non-functional pair and gut them to make them lighter. I think using as many real parts make the prop seem more convincing. Here is my progress so far:

Picture of all 3 for comparison:


Unscrewing the oculars:


The oculars removed (already a ton lighter):


Removing objectives:


Now for the fun part, knocking out the intensifiers with a heavy hammer:


Now to see what I can lighten in the objectives, there were soo many parts to take out:






Now that they are nice and light...I want to work on lighting them up to add some coolness factor. This is me shining a flashlight through one of the lenses. What do you think? I am thinking of adding some LEDs and using the original battery compartment if possible.

[CPU64]

I was about to ask for the optics in case you were going to make movie accurate ones, then I saw the graphic images, and got a little lite headed...

[EctoRalph]

I know it was a little painful to basically destroy perfectly good pvs-5 lenses. I do want to eventually go for more movie accurate lenses and recently saw a post that both original sources were identified. Tomorrow should be arriving some green photographic gel plastic that I am going to put in the lenses to give them a green glow. Going to take a trip to the ole radio shack and see what LEDs are available. I hope to post an update on progress by the end of the weekend.

[CPU64]

Yeah, especially when some of them sell for hundreds each... I have a working 5c and its my baby!!

[EctoRalph]

I finally got some time to do more work on my ecto goggles. I found some cheap rayovac led 2 AA batter flashlights that had a reflector size that would fit the tubes. Also this would let me use the real battery tube and switch.


I figured out which pins were hot when you turned on the switch which I though would be pretty cool to use the actual switch. If it would not have worked I would have replaced the real switch with a rheostat.


Next was to install the light assemblies. The green filter plastic was photography lighting gel film.




Then I added some padding to the tubes for comfort and to keep from getting poked if I wear them other then on my forehead. You can actually still see around the frame if you wear them as if you were really using them.


I also added a retro looking led bulb lens on the bottom with a 7 color multi flash bulb from radio shack for a little flare...lol.


Added some of the metallic stickers, turned it on and it is has a really cool green glow.

[Braz]

Nice job! Especially with the green light!

[EctoRalph]

Thanks I appreciate that. After using this at quite a few conventions I can say they are comfortable and play the part more authentically IMO thank the Matty version. I am going to work on making them more movie accurate this year. However, I feel that variations are okay and each team member might have slightly different gear which would have been used. If you have any questions let me know.

[bjoe41082]

Do you still have the parts you removed? If they aren't completely destroyed I'd like to buy them off you to fix some pvs5s