Dr. Egon Spengler would be so proud. Or maybe he'd be filing suit for copyright infringement. Either way, we are impressed with one New York man's dedication to building his very own proton pack from scratch.

It took magician Nelson Lugo, 37, one month and $200 in materials to create a "Ghostbusters"-inspired, spirit-zapping particle accelerator. And he did it all in the name of love: The pack was a gift for his girlfriend. Ah, nerd romance.

Although Lugo's proton pack isn't an exact movie replica (it does not actually fire a stream of protons to capture negatively charged ectoplasmic entities), he put a lot of effort into making it look like it is.

"I did extensive research both online and in print," Lugo tells Asylum. "I watched both films many times, and I even spent hours with the cartoon series. I'm also a gamer so I played the 'Ghostbusters' video game for the Xbox 360 several times."

Keep reading to learn how Lugo built his ghost-busting machine.

To make it recognizable as a proton pack, Lugo -- who's also a co-producer for Epic Win Burlesque (which put on a "Ghostbusters"-themed revue in July) -- decided that his creation needed five components: a wand connected to a hose; wires and cables; dials and switches; backpack straps; and a light-up generator.

Then he gathered items he thought would be visually appealing, like pressure valves, plasma balls and pink hair gel, and essentially played a game of proton-pack "Tetris."

"I kept moving things around until I landed on a configuration that looked cool to me," he says. "Once I was satisfied with the basic look, I painted some of the items black and attached everything to a wood base."

Before handing over the masterpiece to his girlfriend, he took the proton pack for a spin at Comic-Con. "Ghostbusters" fans slimed their pants at the sight of it.

"People took tons of pictures," he says. "I got hundreds of compliments and at least two kids were reduced to slack-jawed amazement."

Of course, now he's jealous of his girlfriend's proton pack, so he's currently in the planning stages of building "Lugo Pack Mark 2" for himself.

Let's just hope they don't cross the streams.