Helotech

FREAKIN AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much, and thanks for the compliment on the build. This means quite a bit to me. Since the pics were taken in August I addressed all the Fit / Assembly points other troopers and you mentioned. As to the Centurion requirements, the only two hang ups will be the shoulder bells and side gap. Shoulder bells may require purchasing all new bells. The trimmed ones from SDS seem small. I’ll head back to the boiling water first for another go. Re to the side gap: I have dropped a few more pounds and that gap is getting smaller. Pretty close to complete closure. I didn’t want to shim a 1/4 “ gap as it would probably ruin the look. I originally started with elastic webbing, but switched to plain nylon webbing to reduce the gap. As I lose weight, I’ll redo the side strapping system. Congrats on your weight loss. That’s quite the accomplishment. Thanks again, and keep up the good work you do on behalf of the 501st.

Hey Mike. Small LOL on this one. The original logo was gold lettering. What you are seeing is the "ghost glue" leftover that won't come off. Also, when I took the picture I stupidly tucked in my neck seal for some reason and didn't realize the mistake until I was out of the armour. I've attached a pick of me in the undersuit top with the neck seal properly placed. Here is the link to my build thread, page 3. Scroll down a couple pics. Pic of neck seal over the logo. Please excuse the rough edges of the seal. I was in a hurry for a troop and didn't have time to finish the sewing. Please let me know if you need anything else. Thanks again.

Ok, I'm not sure if I created my own issue with the feedback. I had my wife listen to me talking while in the armour and bucket. I turned it up to what I thought was a good level (maybe 1/2 a dial turn) and she said it was loud and I was on the verge of feedback. I turned it down to what I could very roughly estimate was a 2 or max 3 out of 10 on the volume scale (or, 11 for those old enough to remember Spinal Tap...) and I had no feedback. She said the volume was good. I'm guessing going over 4 on the volume scale is too much? Anyone else have this system and can verify.

Ok. I may have been confused by some of the posts, so excuse my comment. I thought someone was stating that if you had interior support (strip of plastic or such) on the belt, then that would not be accepted. My bad.

Hey all. Been off for a bit modding armour and the helmet. Unfortunately I'm still having serious feedback issues to the point I may have to cancel a troop tomorrow. Tony, hope you can help. Here is the new set-up. I went through a few trials and errors before I finally got very frustrated. Will explain all my troubleshooting: Moved iComm and Aker to chest plate freeing up room in helmet. Installed speaker in chest. Moved Hearing assist components in helmet. The 9V battery box is now under the mouth decorative piece. Hovi speakers not connected Purchased Bluetooth (BT) and installed into iComm: constant static from wireless signal coming through the speaker. You can see the BT antenna wrapped in Velcro padding at top of IComm When I went to jiggle the antenna the static stopped. My hand stopped the static signal to speaker, but allowed me to continue talking Made a "tin foil" shield and wrapped around antenna. Then wrapped this with black Velcro. No more static but could still talk through speaker Discovered there is quite a bit of delay when using BT mic. The signal cuts in and out while I talk, and I get static bursts in middle of my conversation. Put on my hearing assist earphones, and I could now hear the BT static in earphones fairly loud. I covered the BT transmitter (not the mic) in the helmet with my hand and static stopped. I made another tin foil / velcro cover for the transmitter, but this didn't stop static. No feed back with BT mic, just static Removed all BT components. Reorganized chest components. Placed the iComm mic back in helmet with mic right against my lips. With hearing assist on and Aker at about 1/3 to 1/2 power (hard to tell), I put on the bucket and started talking, instant loud ear damaging feedback. I reached into chest and turned down Aker, feedback was gone, but I could barely hear my voice out of speaker to the point of it being useless. Slowly turned up Aker and after minimal dial turn the feedback was there. Even on lower setting you could tell the feedback was just about to start. Took bucket off and talked. Feedback was gone, but returned once dial was turned up higher (maybe above 1/2) Turned off hearing assist and tried step 7 and 8 again. Same results. Took off chest plate and placed it on floor to determine if the closeness of mic to speaker was issue. Bucket was put back on and steps 7 to 9 tried. Same results. Removed mouth decorative piece. I put approx. 1" thick piece of dense foam padding (about 2" square) in bucket frown area where mic would be. Put on helmet and mic was pressed into foam tightly between helmet and my lips. This improved the feedback tolerance somewhat, but it came back as the Aker was turned up. Took two extra mini mic foam covers from my motorcycle mic and placed over supplied mic. Put on my black head cover over everything and made sure the mic was between trapped against my lips. Still got feedback to some degree wearing the helmet. I haven't tried with just the Hovi mics Sooooo, not sure what to do. The purchased Bluetooth wireless Xiaokoa Mic Installed iComm components and speaker, plus Bluetooth receiver in chest plate. You can just see the BT antenna sticking out of the top of iComm. Tin foil and Velcro hat (to keep alien signals from warping my thoughts...) Blue tooth components removed Slightly modified helmet interior. Top padding adjusted Nose / mouth piece slightly modded to sit higher towards eyes. I want to rebuild this out of sturdier plastic but ran out of time Blue button panels will be built out of sturdier plastic, but ran out of time. Thinner 10mm minimal (super minimal blowing!) output fans replace originally supplied TK product fans. 2 Original TK product fans still in helmet but repositioned. Mylar silver strapping is decorative to replicate "real" helmet Still want to build the "snail shell" type of exterior for the silver fans as seen in the "real stormtrooper helmet" picture, but have to find a good way to do it. Back side of bucket with hearing assist module at bottom right. Fan buttons are to left and right at top of corrugated black tubing.

First off: Nice work on the armour! My 2 cents: Not sure why inner support for the belt would be an issue? That is like saying everybody must have the movie original TK armour strap system instead of what suits them best. As long as the exterior belt looks and acts the part, who cares what the inside is like. Keep up the good work.

Good cleanup! You’re almost there.

Ok. You played the hurricane card. I got nothing.... What am I supposed to say Glad you made it through safe and sound. Thanks for staying on top of this.

Congrats!

Congrats! Well done.

Congrats! Awesome job.

Congrats on EI! Some minor adjustments and you’re in for Centurion.

Overall a really great build. I noticed some small issues: Neck seal zipper: I think an overlapping Velcro closure at the back of the seal would give a cleaner look. TD placement: Just a minor dressing issue. Try and make sure it is centered when photos are taken. Sniper knee: The top edges of the sniper knee look like they extend past the top of the shin. These should line up There is some glue seepage from under the cover strip on the right forearm. This is easy to remove by rubbing with your fingers. Just double check the rest of your cover strips From your stats it looks like you are a bigger guy, and I don’t mean that in a bad way The shoulder bells look a little too small and they sit back from you shoulder straps and front armour. I am still struggling with the pesky shoulders on my build. Not sure if you can get them closer to the shoulder straps? Otherwise really nice!

This is the comms build I referred to. Sorry, link function not working for some reason. www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/46081-wireless-mic-with-icomm/?tab=comments#comment-634765 Researching wireless mics on Amazon now. Still would like to know if the HOvi tips could work as well, and what I need to do for wireless earphones. Am I being too ambitious?

Tony, bear with me as I explain my setup and new thoughts.Maybe you can assist? I got my expandable tubing that i will use basically as interior helmet decoration (the silver tubes going from “real TK helmet” earphones to mouth filter system) I also redid the setup inside, moving components around, adding some padding to the top of the helmet which i didn’t have before. I haven’t tried the full comms yet for the feedback issue. It is still fairly tight in the helmet. I also wanted to research better ways to work my satellite speaker. I have it mounted in my chest plate, but then I have to run a cable under my neck seal to my helmet. This is cord is then a pain to tuck in. I also have corded earbuds going from hearing assist to my ears. To get the helmet on the ear bud cord needs to be long, and requires tucking into my neck seal. This is all a pain and requires a helper every time i put my helmet on. I’d like to make me more self sufficient. SO, off I went to the forums, and lo and behold, I discovered wireless mic’s. Please don’t laugh... I never even considered them. I’m a slightly technical guy but sometimes slow on the draw... I saw someone’s post where they basically mounted the amp, iComm voice modulator, satellite speaker and Bluetooth mic receiver in the chest. They used a blue tooth mic in the helmet. That would basically leave just the hearing assist system, it’s battery pack, fans and their power cells in my helmet, freeing up a TON of space. Is there a way to have the following: Wireless earbuds going to hearing assist Wireless mic broadcasting to chest plate AND the Hovi helmet speakers. Are there certain specifications for this blue tooth mic? I understand the chest speaker may be sufficient for noisy environments, but I like the ide of having a back up with the Hovi’s Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Just ordered some mylar expandable tubing, and it comes in silver. Bonus! Should be here in two days to 5 days. Time to strip out the helmet. People are right, you are never truly done....

Thanks Tony. That's what I figured. The thing that intrigued me is that everything worked fine leading up to the actual troop, then problems started when I got to the convention center. I'm not blaming the products at all. It is just my set-up. The items are awesome. Thankfully everything is just Velcro'd in and easy to remove. I'm stripping the bucket of everything this week, then will move items around to a more user friendly set-up and see what happens. Because of time constraints I just randomly placed Velcro in the bucket as I was testing fitting items. I bought a couple big rolls of sticky Velcro from Canadian Tire, and will probably line the entire interior helmet with the stuff to make it easier to move items around.

No problem.

Sounds great, and thanks! Look forward to seeing your fix. Where do you normally troop?

No worries. As you can imagine I’m just excited and anxious. I’m working towards Centurion and want to know if there is anything I need to do or tear apart. I’m planning on trooping at some events early Sept and don’t want to take things apart and miss those. Cheers!

Thanks. Due to my first troop and weekend away in Toronto I wasn’t able to look at any of the minor adjustments Q suggested. Just curious, but I haven’t heard from the EI approval staff. Totally understand they are short staffed, but any idea if I should ping someone? I’m looking at another troop in a couple weeks. thanks everyone.

thanks Tony. That means allot to me. I’d been searching for a good cable type material for quite a while and couldn’t find any. I just used some 1/2” green webbing material I had laying about and painted it silver. That braided cable cover you mentioned looks just the part and I haven’t seen it before. I will have to source it. I just did my 1st troop in Toronto at Fanexpo! Amazing experience and Great bunch of people. The troop did highlight some issues with my setup: I had a big issue with a very high pitched feedback that hurt my ears. I turned on the hearing assist in the nose piece, put in my ear phones and turned on the icomm system. As soon as I put the bucket on, the piercing feedback started. This was blasted out of my Hovi’s and the satellite speaker in my chest and my ear phones. I had to basically turn of the hearing assist and unplugged the speaker for good measure, and just go with the Hovi voice system I think maybe the Voice system and hearing assist components may be too close too one another? Maybe my main microphone is not supposed to be close to the hearing assist in the nose piece? I’m going to pull everything out and do a bench test with everything close to one another, and I will contact the supplier and see what he recommends. A funny thing that happened is when I turned on the hearing assist, I was picking up radio signals from somewhere! Our hotel room was looking right at the CN Tower in downtown T.O. That is basically one giant antenna and may have something to do with it. when I was down in the convention center, this did not happen. I ran the cable for the chest speaker under my neck seal, to the back of my helmet. Once I plugged everything in an put on the bucket, I had to have someone help tuck in the speaker cable and ear phone cables. This wasn’t great. I’m trying to make it self sufficient so I can put it on on off on my own. The blue buttons pieces and nose filter unit were made with thin plastic card stock used for modelling. I Think .015”? I was on the convention floor, in my armor and trying to troubleshoot before doing the big group photo and TK March on the streets. I had to take out the 3 pieces and nose filter unit so I could access components. I found that they were very fragile and some of the glue joints had cracked. I think I will remake the units using much thicker plastic.sigh...here I go again. I got my thinner fans in the mail literally as I was packing the car to leave. I replaced the silver ear speaker / fans with the new thinner fans. This allowed me to add a foam backing to isolate it from the helmet. Fan noise was almost non existent. Sadly, so was the output. They would be good for demisting the eye pieces, but not provide much for cooling. I found I could not reach the two fan buttons located at the back of the helmet. I couldn’t bend my arms enough in my armor. So before the troop I stretched the wires as far as I could and moved the buttons to just below the blue buttons. I could easily cycle the fans. I kept the thin ears speakers running all the time, and only turned on the bigger and louder black fans as I felt the bucket getting stuffy since those ones were still noisy. because of my set up I could have next to no padding in the helmet. The basket is sitting directly on my head, and the only things stopping the helmet from becoming a bobble head and flopping around are the components pressing against my skull. They don’t hurt, it is just not ideal. I did manage to find a couple spots to put some small padding pieces, but they didn’t do too much. This will be part of V2 of the build. i wan to try a chin strap to make the helmet more secure and prevent bobble heading. I got quite a few compliments on my set up, but I would give it a C- for functionality. I will go back to the drawing board and do version two. more to follow.

It must be the pics. They are lined up perfectly to the edges. Must be just how they hang in the photos.

Okay. Time for the big reveal. I always wanted a TK helmet that was as true to a real one as possible, and I think I've come pretty close. I will probably modify the items as time goes on to make them more durable and user friendly as they are made out of thin plastic card stock. Everything is made out of plastic scrap and bit and pieces I use to build models. Everything except the battery modules cam from TK Products. AWESOME STUFF I used the well known Stormtrooper interior helmet pics you can find online, and spent MANY hours figuring how to fit everything inside. Poorer quality ref pic with items named: It is a VERY snug fit with all the wiring, electronics and 4 fans. I don't need padding to hold the helmet in place, but may add some thin stuff for comfort. This helmet is fully functioning with all the prop pieces in it. ICOMM box is above left ear Two of the fans are the silver "speakers" on either side of the helmet. The silverish cording running from the fans to the central unit are decorative The USB power modules for the fans are located under the blue / grey button panels on left and right The central " air exhaust,/voice filter unit / comlink microphone" large panel piece is easily removable (with velcro) and hides the main part of the Hearing assist unit. The microphone for the Hovi's is free floating in front and sits right against my lips. The thin black cord running out of the helmet comms from the Hearing Assist module is to my ear phones. The microphones for the hearing assist are installed under the helmet ear pieces out of sight, just behind the silver fans. The 9V battery for the hearing assist is over my right eye with cabling running around the edge of the eye and down. The air intake and exhausts are covers for the rear of the Hovi speakers. The black plastic tubing running from the Hovi's to the button panels is decorative with no function. ICOMM voice Amp and junction box. One of the buttons for the fans is just up and left of the AUX input. One additional black fan is above the AMP Back of helmet: Most cabling is tucked in the 3/4" wire lume along the back neck area. 4th fan is to the left, beside silver fan. You can see the two fan buttons (one controls silver, the other black) just above the wire lume. There is a wire Y cable coming out of the SPKR jack on Voice Amp. One leads to the Hovi tips, the other attaches to the Satellite speaker I have installed on my chest plate. I just run a long 3.5 mm cable from my chest, under the neck seal to the back of helmet. Right side: Straight in view Central piece removed. Battery cover removed Issues I have with this. With the fans running right by my ears, they create a resonance in the helmet. Even with the hearing assist on and earphones in, there is a constant buzz in my ears. It doesn't help that the silver fan only fit on top of the hearing microphones located in the helmet ears. I can only hear people when they are talking fairly loud within 3 or 4 feet of me. Without the fans, no issue and the hearing assist works extremely well. I have tried placing soft foam between the fans and the helmet. This helps ALLOT, but now the fans are too far out from the sides of the helmet and I can barely get it on. If all this annoys me a may have to forgo accuracy and place the fans just behind the Hovi tips. These fans are 40x40x20's. I have ordered 40x40x10's, so they are half as thick. Hopefully they will arrive tomorrow before I depart for my troop. I will use them with some soft backing foam and see if that knocks down the helmet noise. Hope you like!

Back on this page for an update to my build. I finally got a chance to walk around my neighbourhood for the 1st time fully kitted up. I'm kind of late trying to prepare for my first troop at the Toronto Fanexpo this weekend. It is a huge event with a lot of people from Canadian Garrison and some truly wicked displays. Findings: Boots coming untucked from calf armor Since this was pre-trimmed SDS armor, I wasn't able to give myself some extra material to fit over the tops of my boots. I previously installed small Velcro tabs on the two boot loops, and put corresponding Velcro on the inside of the calves, front and back to hold the calves down. The boots are fairly snug around the tops of my ankles, so it is not a question of too much material. There is not enough armor and cover strip at the bottom of the calves to wrap around the boots and stay closed. The left is worse than the right. I have added a 1.5" support strip on the inside of the left calf to allow the bottom of the calf to have more expansion. Once dry I will reinstall the Velcro closure. Here I have taken the left side of the left calf, tucked it into the calf to facilitate gluing the support strip in. I hate having to do this the night before leaving for a big convention! I also did a small mod to my travel case. Installed a nifty blaster holder to keep the blaster from rattling around in the case and give me more room. I used some left over snaps and elastic from the original armor snap system. This is NOT the 3 day project I was working on that I said I would post pics of. That is still to come ... Now it is time to clean and some of the armor and pack for the weekend. Gonna be a late night....