Mando Mercs Costume Club
Mandalorian Armor => Equipment & Accessories => Electronics => Topic started by: Naasad Tal on Jan 03, 2020, 06:15 AM
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So i have been a member of the MMCC for almost 10 years (this coming May) and I have been constantly tweaking and upgrading my mando over the years. I like my tech and I like my gadgets, I also like shock and awe. So when I first started my mando all those years ago, I had this dream...to build a helmet interior that would make people go :o :o
Over the past years, I have researched ideas and have come up with an idea for what components would help me accomplish my dream...below is that list:
- Fans
- Lights
- Audio Pick-ups
- Voice Amp
- 2-way coms
The official start to realizing my dream happened about 5 or 6 years ago when I purchased my current helmet (a Large NME Stalker) and then customized it's earcaps with inspiration from an anime called Appleseed, specifically the character Briareos. The mods I made to the earcaps on my helmet were made with the eventual realization of this long imagined dream in mind. I realized early on that I needed a set of sensors that was bigger and offered more detail than what I originally made for my new helmet, so I worked with a local friend to design a new slightly taller earcap that would allow for the bigger sensor pods which we also designed. These Items were 3D printed (seen in the attached pics) and have been awaiting the final form of my helmet.
(https://i.imgur.com/jmSzFnj.jpg)
This year I got an amazon Gift Card for Christmas and I decided it was FINALLY time to realize my dream and so I purchased the first parts to help me do that and as the first parts are due to arrive tomorrow with another arriving sometime mid-next week I thought it was high time I shared this dream with you all and to create a thread that will chronicle the realization of my dream.
With that in mind, allow me to lay out my plan:
- Everyone has fans, but a couple months ago when our clan had a fan kit building armor party, I took the opportunity and assembled a much better fan system for my helmet and installed 2 blowers behind the earcaps of my helmet running on a powerbank.
- LEDs will be added to the sensor pods and possibly above the visor.
- The gift card I received went toward a Velleman Stereo Ear Kit and my vision is to run wire to the mics for the kit so that they can be placed in the rear-facing sensor pods and then I will wire a speaker (also purchased using the gift card) to the kit rather than using earbuds to make removing my helmet as easy as possible.
(https://i.imgur.com/k7uK8sD.jpg)
- The last thing purchased with my gift card was a voice amp which will be taken apart and the internal components placed inside the helmet with the speaker pointed out thru the vent in the right cheek of my helmet. I'm thinking about going wireless for the voice amp mic so that I can use my helmet as a speaking aid during panels or at booth tables when a helmet may not be the way.
(https://i.imgur.com/qf4VT6l.jpg)
- The final item on my list is a 2-way radio...This is one thing I have yet to see done and am excited by the prospect. Similarly to my voice amp, the radio will be gutted and the internals placed inside my helmet. I haven't yet acquired this component, but I hope to have it in hand soon.
(https://i.imgur.com/F9C78Jy.jpg)
All in all these are not things that unfamiliar as most of us have voice amps and quite a few use audio pick-ups to hear better, the tricky part of my dream will be in the control of all these components. My idea is to be able to control everything from my gauntlet. Ideally i want this to be accomplished via bluetooth, but this kind of knowedge elludes me atm and further research will be necessary to make this a reality, until then, my current method will have to be a wire running down my arm to the gauntlet with all controls mounted there.
ok, wow...that was WAY longer than what I originally set out to write. If you made it this far thank you for taking the time. As you can tell, I am kind of excited by the prospect of moving forward with an idea I had almost 10 years ago and I hope that I will be able to complete everything and be able to finally say that I did it.
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I've done a similar thing in my bucket
- Fans Check
- Working range finder with remote activation
- Audio Pick-ups used a Velleman Stereo Ear Kit but replaced the mics with 3mm mics to it was easier to hide them and bone conduction earphones to keep my ears free for the coms
- Voice Amp with a radio mic (currently working on a TKTalkie to at to it for push to talk and static bust))
- 2-way coms Using a through mic, and ear piece with a push to talk.
Hope you pull it off in your bucket. If I can help with anything just MSG me
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Exciting news...I finally have everything in hand except the walkie!!
The reason for the delay in updates was because I had an issue once I actually got the voice amp I originally ordered in hand. Due to it's power requirements (12v or 8 AA batteries) I determined it would not work for my needs so I returned it and reached out to Mandalore for insite and he pointed me in the direction of a tiny little Adafruit amp that WOULD suit my needs and the best part is that it'll run on only 5v (meaning I can still run it on my Power Bank). So I ordered that and got it in hand the other day.
In regards to my gauntlet controls, I sat down and a rethink to determine the bare minumum of controls I needed within easy reach and decided on just the power switch for the voice amp and the PTT for the walkie. I might also put the volume control for the voice amp on my gauntlet, but I haven't decided if that's truly necessary yet & I want to keep things as simple as possible, once I get everything wired up I'll make the final determination on that. I'm still trying for a wireless option and have reached out to the Droid Builders in hopes that they have an idea on how I can accomplish this.
I have the next three days off from work and I'm thinking I might start to wire everything together and see where I'm at once the smoke clears :P :P For now, I'll leave you all with what I currently have in hand...I opted for a wireless mic for the amp thinking that if I CAN get everything self contained inside the helmet like I'm planning that I can use my helmet as a display (i.e. at a convention) and still be able to use the voice amp to address folks around me.
(https://i.imgur.com/xGnl16y.jpg)
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Good luck with your mods! I'm still working on my first kit, but I'm already planning on some mods that will help me see who's in my blindspots (behind). I've got some arduino distance sensors (3 - 1 for back, 1 for left, 1 for right) that'll tie into some small LED's that will sit above the brow in the helmet. Still sorting out if I want to go with bluetooth or stick with a wired connection.
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Good luck with your mods! I'm still working on my first kit, but I'm already planning on some mods that will help me see who's in my blindspots (behind). I've got some arduino distance sensors (3 - 1 for back, 1 for left, 1 for right) that'll tie into some small LED's that will sit above the brow in the helmet. Still sorting out if I want to go with bluetooth or stick with a wired connection.
I had thought about a rear facing camera, but hadn't thought of motion sensors...that's a pretty good idea actually. It's simple, but effective, I'd be interested in checking out these sensors if you wouldn't mind sharing a link.
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I had thought about a rear facing camera, but hadn't thought of motion sensors...that's a pretty good idea actually. It's simple, but effective, I'd be interested in checking out these sensors if you wouldn't mind sharing a link.
Here's the one I bought: https://www.ebay.com/itm/40Khz-3-5M-Waterproof-Ultrasonic-Sensor-Distance-Measuring-Module/264379629299?hash=item3d8e40fef3:g:zNAAAOSwv9ldFdc4
I haven't had a chance to try it out, but it's waterproof and has a decently wide field (less than 80 degrees) with a good range (30 cm to 3m; about a foot to 9/10 feet). I was just gonna code it to change the colour of the light, so if someone was within 2 feet, the light would be red, between 2 and 4 feet, yellow. It's more just for warning in case I don't see what's behind me or if someone is actually trying to creep up on me.
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Very cool...thanx for that
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"- Everyone has fans, but a couple months ago when our clan had a fan kit building armor party, I took the opportunity and assembled a much better fan system for my helmet and installed 2 blowers behind the earcaps of my helmet running on a powerbank."
I'm still planning my bucket layout. What makes a fan system better than another?
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"- Everyone has fans, but a couple months ago when our clan had a fan kit building armor party, I took the opportunity and assembled a much better fan system for my helmet and installed 2 blowers behind the earcaps of my helmet running on a powerbank."
I'm still planning my bucket layout. What makes a fan system better than another?
Every one is different, but for me it was changing from computer fans to directional blowers & from a 9v set up to a rechargeable li-ion power bank used for charging cell phones on the go
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So I know it's been a while since I updated you all, but real life and a small commission project slowed things down a bit and I also had hit a small speed bump in trying to figure out the wireless controls for my gauntlet, but I had a sit down with one of my Droid Builder friends and told him what I was looking to do and he pointed me to this 2 channel RF switch relay which should do the trick...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CJ6DSQC/?coliid=I3S38K6CDUHQUT&colid=2CGWOO5C56Z0X&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
...the best part is that it has app support so in theory, I can use my phone (which is built into my gauntlet) to control my voice amp and walkie.
This coming weekend the GF is going out of town so I'll be stranded at home with no car and no real reason to do anything but start on wiring everything up, so hopefully soon I'll have some "in helmet" progress to show!
As always thanx for looking!
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I'm going to try and use theses NRF24L01 https://howtomechatronics.com/tutorials/arduino/arduino-wireless-communication-nrf24l01-tutorial (https://howtomechatronics.com/tutorials/arduino/arduino-wireless-communication-nrf24l01-tutorial/) from the arduino in my gauntlet to the one in my helmet to control the range finder and fans.
I got was going to use something similar to the 2 channel key fob thing you are looking at, but I though with the growing use of electronic all it would take is somebody using the same fob and they could set of my stuff.
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I'll take a look at that, thanx Vorpal
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UPDATE TIME!!
So I finally have all the components in hand and I started working on getting the boards together, I got my Stereo Ear & Voice Amp kits wired up (burned the hell out of my finger in the process...note to self, soldering iron is HOT), but for some reason the speakers I have aren't producing any sound :( so I've reached out to a couple knowledgeable folks and will try to trouble shoot the whole rig this coming weekend. In the meantime I'll share a couple pics from last weekend's shenanigans. Good news is that the walkie works just fine out of it's casing (bare board and speaker)!!
Fingers crossed for this weekend, cuz I'd really like to get this "little" project finished up and installed...and as always, thanx for checking in!
(https://i.imgur.com/78cFb3r.jpg)
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So since it's been a minute, I thought I'd drop in and give a brief update. I was finally able to sit down and troubleshoot my electronics only to find out that all 3 of my speakers are DEAD!! >:( >:(
...so now I have to order some new speakers and wait for them to arrive before I can attempt to try again to get these things up and running.