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[Amintor]

I had just started following the Mercs right around the time Target released the Boba helmet for Halloween and I managed to get my hands on a few of them.
After TONS of reading I finally got an idea of what I wanted to try and do with one.  I'm still undecided on colors (no matter the project, I tend to stall out once it's time to pick the paint  lol) so for now I'm just focusing on getting it all tweaked out and I'll worry about a color scheme later.


All taken apart, sanded down, keyholes cut, dent filled, and visor cut out.


Reassembled. Cutting the keyholes was fairly easy. Although the plastic is soft and easy to cut/drill, it's still a pretty solid bucket. A buddy of mine recently received a resin bucket from a vendor, and although it looks cool and has a nice heft it's still super brittle. He has already dropped it and cracked it a little. So I'm pleased with the design of these things. Take that FWIW from a newbie.


This kind of shows how they sandwiched the visor in there between the red plastic. After removing the visor I didn't like how deep the new visor was recessed back into the helmet. So I used a dremel to sand down the ridge that was holding the original visor in there. It was probably the toughest part, it gets pretty tight making it tough to get a good angle with the sanding wheel. Plus you have to remove a lot of material and the red plastic is pretty thick, then underneath that is the visor material, both of which tend to get gooey when hot.

Bolts mounted upside down in epoxy putty for visor attachment.  I also sealed the seams with the epoxy.  To fill the dent I drilled some small holes at a bunch of extreme angles and sort of "smushed" some epoxy putty into the dent, forcing some putty to extrude thru to the inside, which I then "smushed" down to form a nail head. The epoxy filling the dent will never pop out.


Testing a visor


All back together. I filled in the small dent by the earcap and eventually the turn signals too


Primered and painted with the first layer of silver basecoat. The skull was just me goofing around with a Sharpie.

[Gratua Marev]

Looking good so far vod.  I also get stuck on the painting portion of my armor.

[Bowfanny]

Good Joni didn't like the visor area thickness on the on I started either.

[Amintor]

Now here's where it starts to get fun.  I picked this guy up at the local grocery store for $14 .

I purchased a servo online, the same one that this guy uses http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f23/rs-zip-zap-mini-rc-rf-servo-tutorial-25704/ and I wired it up the same way. Basically you remove the control circuit (that uses the yellow wire) and wire the servo motor directly to the receiver board. (5v+ makes the motor turn one way, 5v- makes it turn the other.....just like the wheels of the car go forward and reverse)

That servo operates at 5v so I made sure the vehicle (which contains the receiver board) used the same voltage. 3 batteries @ 1.5v = 4.5v = close enough  (I made the mistake of getting a micro RC car then realized it's motor only operated at 1v.)

Out of the box.

The top popped off easily (2 screws). The battery box is connected to the receiver board and all pulled right out of the chassis in one piece, just had to pull the connectors to the motors.

The receiver board is the top half. Originally I planned to use the unit as is but it was too big so I just removed the receiver board. I eventually went with a 4 AA power supply. I wanted the extra power since I'm running fans, the servo, and the LEDs all off the same supply, and the extra 1.5v isn't enough to fry the board.


Receiver board connected to servo.

The joysticks from the remote control; I foresee them having a future as some sort of greeblie.

Servo mounted


I kept the receiver board in it's cover and mounted it in the helmet right under the servo.

The earcap that holds the RF stalk. I put epoxy around the hole for the RF peg, and I mounted a little switch (might be hard to see) right where the RF stalk comes to a stop. That will turn on the LEDs in the RF topper.


Inside of RF topper, I cut out the little view screen and will put a white LED behind it along with two red LEDs in the front.


That's where I'm at right now. I still need to wire up the RF LEDs and put it all together (a couple of the pictures aren't loading, photobucket is being weird at the moment)

[Kavryn Falco]

Hahaha that's clever, good plan!

[Myra Tiin]

That's one lovely target bucket build ! And really clever with the electronics

[Yogi]

I really wish I had picked up one of these buckets when I had the chance. I hope they appear again around Halloween this year. This is a great looking build so far!

[Kavryn Falco]

Rumor has it that they will, and not just at Target either

[Yogi]

Rumor has it that they will, and not just at Target either

If they are still at the same price point, I may buy 2 or 3

[Amintor]

A little bit of an update.

Earcap pieces painted


Flashing red LEDs for the RF plus a white LED to illuminate the small targeting screen on the RF.


Since I'm getting this kit ready for a May the 4th party and I plan on working the door a bit (checking IDs)  I wanted some light.  The LEDs on the earcap are also wired to a remote switch so I can turn the lights on whenever I need to get a good look at someone's drivers license. Plus it should be cool when people are coming it to have a Mando standing there with a big gun, blinding them with a light, and saying "you're clear, move along"....  lol

[Jorbe Falco]

Great idea on the LEDs in the ear cap. I'm curious on how they look when they are powered on.

[Amintor]

Great idea on the LEDs in the ear cap. I'm curious on how they look when they are powered on.

UPDATE

After painting the helmet and trying my hand at weathering I realized I didn't like my color scheme and my weathering didn't look "natural"; so I started over.

Base silver coat


White coat on the interior

Notice the small rectangular hole I cut out.  The servo motor I used from the tutorial over at TDH was just too powerful. It had so much torque that the servo would try and wrench itself loose every time the RF stalk dropped to the lower position. So I found a smaller servo at Radio Shack for about half the price as the original (even cheaper on Amazon).)  It worked perfect. Being less powerful it was still able to rotate the RF without slamming down hard when it came to rest. You can see it here at the 'bottom' of the helmet, below the RC receiver board. After cutting out the notch I was able to screw the servo directly to the helmet behind the earcap.


Screen behind the keyholes, fans installed


I installed the RC transmitter into a Rubies Boba carbine. I opened it up, installed some buttons and filled it with expanding foam and caulk to give it some heft. The red button lowers the RF, the black one raises it, and the blue button turns on the LED array.




I cleaned up the wiring in the LED array


Finally finished






Here it is along side the buy'ce of my fellow vod during our May 4th party

[Cin Vhe'rang]

Lights, doodads, and all.  I can dig it, vod!