Working on a budget for my accessories since the soft parts and sintra are going to cost me an arm and a leg anyways, so i started working today on a jetpack made entirely of scrap and junk parts. I'm a maintenance technician for an apartment complex, so I always have access to a lot of old/used parts or spare parts that come with things we order but dont need to use.
This jetpack build started out with a wall insert used for washer/dryer connections (the little box that the supply line pipes come out of). This particular insert had the pipes removed for a repair, and the box itself was the wrong type for what we have here, so it made for a free and easy base to start building off of. For the exhaust nozzles, I used two kitchen faucet sprayer bases threaded through the base, and glued on two toilet bolt caps for the final nozzles. I cut out the center of the base and used an old showerhead water softener attachment that had been left by a previous tenant, threading it through the top and fitting it at an angle with a nail:
Next I wanted to create a shroud around the base to make it a little bigger, a little bulkier, and not quite so squared off. I used the motor housing from a ceiling fan, cutting it to fit the base inside as best I could. I also filled the base with expanding foam to fill in some of the gaps around the water softener. it will require quite a bit of touchup work once that foam dries/hardens in order to make everything smooth again, but it was all I had available at the time:
I secured the base to the fan housing with a little bit of silicone around the top and bottom edges for now, but all the little "slits" from the ceiling fan housing are going to eventually be filled and sanded smooth. The slits on the opposite side (which will be against my back) will remain open, serving as a sort of air intake/turbine for the jetpack. I may even put an LED light strip inside the housing so you can see a glow through all of those little slits.
After that, I plugged the two holes on the bottom of the base (where the previous pipe fittings had been) with a couple of spent CO2 gun cartridges to look like fuel or power cells. I added a shower cartridge cover, cut in half, to the bottom of the water softener to cover the pipe and nail holding it in, and appear as an extension of the motor/turbine. Finally, I drilled a hole in the top left of the base and used a broken toilet tank handle to create an antenna on the pack:
Tomorrow when the foam and glue/silicone has dried I'll see what I can do about cleaning things up, filling the slits on the fan casing with drywall joint compound or maybe bondo if I can find some. I also need to figure out what to do with the bottom back section of the fan casing that extends past the base, as it looks a tad out of place.