Whilst out in town on Tuesday, I spied this little gizmo in one of the charity shops for a measly £2. I knew immediately that I had to have it:



The device is about 17cm in length, 7.8cm tall and 6.7 in width, and comes with two different types of fitting, the first being a plastic disc with bristles fitted into it (sadly this one is unlikely to easily convert, as I'm unsure how the bristles are held in), the second head is a similar plastic disc, which a cotton-covered layer wraps onto… this one, should I decide to use it will be infinitely easier to modify for my Giga needs.

Design and shape, it's perfect for a miniature Giga Meter…







…and appropriately enough, the device is a shoe polisher. The Polisher was sold by boots, and judging by the lack of info I can find, and the design of the packaging and instructions… probably sold in a time before the internet.



Interior space wise, I have a lot of room to work with:



Depending on what lights I install (and this will feature animated lighting, just not in accurate motion to the movie), there should be plenty of room in the large battery compartment to bolt a smaller one onto the interior plastic architecture.

There should also be room for running the electronics into the scan head, and even install a pair of ears above the scan head.



I should even be able to retain the original plastic switch thanks to it being a sleeve fitting over a conventional slide switch. I'll investigate whether I can even use the slide switch as well to activate the lights, or if I'll need to find a replacement.



The design of the battery cover should allow me to feature the boxes on the underside of the Giga without impeding access to the battery compartment.



And the cherry on the top, it looks like the Polisher isn't small enough to incorporate a set of accurate ears (either resin or the real plastic ones - I'm gonna look into whether I can get a resin set cast).

And finally, the Compact Giga Meter sat next to my recently-returned Redman:




Sad to say, that'll be the last update on the Compact Giga Meter until some time into the summer, as I'll be working on building my Proton Gun and repairing my N-Filter for Collectormania in Milton Keynes in May.

An unexpected update on my Compact Giga Meter:



Today I received an integral piece of the Giga, the Stereo Microphone which was used for the Giga Meter's ears… not only that, but I got three sets:



I wish I could say I got them for a song, but the seller shafted me on the postage - totalling $94 for three items measuring 17cm in length, 2 in height and 4 in width, placed in a box measuring 47cm in length, 24 in height and 19 in width… and packed with a bit of foam packing material that wasn't necessary at all.

Despite that though, I'm still pleased to have them.

Additionally, I had some luck on Tueday in terms of domes, I left town with two different types which may serve my needs. The first is as follows:



A frosted dome from a athelete's foot treatment, measuring about 5cm in height and 5.2cm on the diameter. If I use this one it'll need a bit of trimming, but it could work out nicely, even with the ridges on the inside.

The second is as follows:



A smoked plastic dome from a Gillette body spray, measuring about 4cm in height and 4.8cm on the diameter. I figure the smoked plastic could work quite nicely, but I may consider using a frosting paint on the inside to diffuse the internal lighting and hide the interior electronics which would be on view.



And that's it for now, short but sweet… and with plenty of material to work with for the time being.

Nice work Ben, I´m looking for seeing it finished.

For the inner electronics, or the “spinny, lighty thing” as I like to call it*, are you planning to get one of those wands with a…spinny, lighty thing inside it?

(*I honestly don't know what else to call it!:-))

Sadly no, I don't think the setup would be small enough to work with this compact version's significantly smaller dome, nor would the motor for it be practical to install given the shape of the polisher body.

Kingpin;161248
Sadly no, I don't think the setup would be small enough to work with this compact version's significantly smaller dome, nor would the motor for it be practical to install given the shape of the polisher body.

Oh, well. Y'know, they make those things really small these days, small enough to fit on a lanyard. I think the outer ball of the really small ones is about 1" diameter. Try looking for something Disney or Pixar-themed.

A small breakthrough and update on the Compact Giga Meter thanks to Exoray.

In his Giga Meter kit topic, Flynn detailed how to remove the microphone element from the Realistic Microphone heads. With this process laid out with digital photographs, I set to work following his instructions.

I'll have to repeat this process to ensure it'll work the way I think it will, but I believe I've found an even quicker way of extracting the Microphone element. Using a 3/64“ miniature screwdriver (or smaller than 2mm for those who don't have such markings on their packs), I poked the screwdriver into the two ”nub" holes at the top of the microphone head like so:



After applying a bit of leverage, the microphone element partially popped out (the remainder is easily removable by hand). I then drilled the element housing one one side, and I was able to extract the microphone element from the housing, leaving it free for the lighting that I hope to install:



Having opened it up, it would appear that the lower half of the housing may have been removed on the screen-used prop, due to the way most of the ear appears to light up in Ghostbusters II, but the housing would only allow light to shine through half… to maybe even only a third of the height of the microphone head. I also believe a frosted plastic tube was installed within the ear, to which the original cap was glued onto, if the original cap is actually on the screen-used prop.

Part of me feels the end cap was dumped with the microphone element housing.

Kingpin;161532
Part of me feels the end cap was dumped with the microphone element housing.

I'm going at this from memory alone, but I think the end cap was still on there, like they cut the microphone element off and glued the cap on or something. I haven't watched GB2 in a long time, but I really want to say that they'd try to retain the end cap.