If ever there was a quintessential weapon of science fiction, it would have to be the ray gun. [lonesoulsurfer] built this one-of-a-kind stunner from his impressive collection of junk. It’s centered around a vintage Bakelite soldering gun, a vacuum tube, and a portable stove burner, all of which contribute to the fantastic mid-century look.
Inside is a slightly modified version of a ray gun sound effects circuit from MAKE: that squeezes square waves from a lo-fi synth builder’s favorite IC, the 40106 hex inverting Schmitt trigger. [lonesoulsurfer] was able to reuse the soldering gun’s trigger to start the pew-pew-pew, and he can adjust the death ray’s output with potentiometers. The gun is powered by an old cell phone battery and a combo Li-ion charger/step-up module from the world’s largest virtual auction house. Blast past the break to watch the build video.
If one little green LED isn’t enough for you, maybe you’d prefer this light painting gun.
Danger Will Robinson Danger!
More dangerous than you think…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YsMkTmfoNI
Surely in that pile of old tubes is a gas discharge rectifier which could be made to glow by the flash power supply from a disposable camera?
Dang that’s a next level idea. This one looks great btw, very clean and a clever little way to use a burnt out old tube
Should try a mercury rectifier tube:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=mercury+rectifier+tube&iax=images&ia=images
You are giving me flashbacks to my childhood nightmares about the terrifying Atomic Mole People! (Apparently a Hoover ray gun.) http://www.multiversitycomics.com/tv/adventures-of-superman-unknown-people/
Sounds like something The Martian™ would come up with.
or “My Favorite Martian”
B^)
I get my Buck Rogers on with one of these… https://www.sciplus.com/pistolstyle-soldering-gun-61513-p
I’ve had a few of those! Classics.
For another actual tool that was clearly designed to have that “ray gun look” do an image search for a “Robinair Model 14470” It was a refrigerant Leak detector for servicing AC and refrigeration systems. You don’t even have to mod these to use them as a ray gun prop!
one on ebay here:
https://www.ebay.com/p/1739808712
Nice! I love how clean it turned out, pretty good prop building craftsmanship. Surprised there isn’t any mention of Weta workshop in here, they make some cool models like these: https://technabob.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/weta_raygun.jpg