Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

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Hope people don't mind me bumping my own thread so much...

Ok, so the foam from the router came in, and I just wasn't happy with it. It got the general shape right, but I could tell there was going to be a lot of time spent fixing up all the details in it before I was happy with the result. I decided to try something else.

I called up a local trophy shop and asked if they did laser etching for plaques, and if they could etch custom artwork. The guy seemed a little curious as to why I needed the shapes I asked for, but its not the first time I've confused someone with my hobbies. A couple of days later, I got this in the mail:

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You can compare my design to a shot of the real helmet here:

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I ran the lines up further because I need to make the "ear cone" piece to go over top of the whole thing. The edges of the "D" shaped outer ear piece will also contour into the circuit board pattern, like the shot above. Yes, I took some small liberties with the design. Normally I'd be very anal-retentive about this, but there were some lines which just didn't make sense to me design-wise as I was plotting them out, and I decided to change them.

The woodgrain looks a little hokey, but its just for the mold, and will eventually be shot with primer so nobody will know the difference anyways. I had to take .25" off the backside of them to get it to sit at the correct depth in the ear recesses, but after a pass on the table router and another couple on the bandsaw, they plunked right in.

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There's a "seam" line around the ears as well, which I carved out. There's another that separates the front and back halves, but I need to fine-tune the upper hoop before I carve those out.

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A little more detail sanding for some of the high spots, and this is where I ended today. I don't have any pics of it, but I epoxied the MDF "ears" into place and cleaned up the chin area of the helmet earlier, giving it a more squared-off shape. I also refined the hoops that go around the helmet, but this is just detail work. Hopefully we'll be moldworthy soon.

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stay tuned...
 
DerKraken said:
Hope people don't mind me bumping my own thread so much...
D; Don't even start to think that way. We're practically swarming over this thread, eagerly awaiting your every post.

That etched wood looks awesome.
It's really coming along great. I can't wait to see how the mold ends up.
 
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xMazdachiefx said:
Your Amazing, and your doing A GREAT JOB! keep up the Amazing work!

I second that! Most impressive are your electronics schematics. I'm sure you've taken classes or something, cause I'm trying to figure it out on my own, and although it isnt really that hard, the bigger the circuit gets, the more complicated it seems. Good job though, I'm most excited to see how your lighting turns out.

In the daft punk Guy helmet, he has LEDs even over the visor portion of the helmet. I've always wondered how he sees through that. Are you going to try to attempt the same?
 
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timonemycat said:
I second that! Most impressive are your electronics schematics. I'm sure you've taken classes or something, cause I'm trying to figure it out on my own, and although it isnt really that hard, the bigger the circuit gets, the more complicated it seems. Good job though, I'm most excited to see how your lighting turns out.

In the daft punk Guy helmet, he has LEDs even over the visor portion of the helmet. I've always wondered how he sees through that. Are you going to try to attempt the same?

Thanks! I'm actually mostly self-taught. I did take some courses in 12V DC systems as part of a mechanic's certification in 2002, but thats the extent of my "formal" training. It was really just Ohm's law and general definition stuff. There's a ton of information out there online, as well as on this forum - I know I've learned a lot just from the people who have commented on this thread, too. I need to remake the "chin" LED boards, and then send these out for production. I'd like to have them on hand when I pull the first cast.

As for the face bank of LEDs, I don't know how he could really see through that without some ultra-thin LCD display inside the helmet. I'm trying to keep the power supply down to 3 or 4 9V batteries, so I won't be building that array. From the research I've done, they're all RGB LEDs as well. Not only would it draw ridiculous amperage, but the programming is way beyond my current capabilities. Maybe someday, but for now I'll be happy with just the side banks.
 
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In your initial schematics, are those potentiometers before the resistors and leds? if they are, whats the reasoning behind why theres three outputs for it, where do they each go?
 
timonemycat said:
In your initial schematics, are those potentiometers before the resistors and leds? if they are, whats the reasoning behind why theres three outputs for it, where do they each go?

Those are actually transistors. They're there to switch the current draw from the LEDs directly to the battery, since the ICs can only sink ~40mA per channel.
 
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more self-bumpage...

Just some shots on a bit more detail work. Carving out the separation line from the front to the back of the helmet hoops. Also carved the "ear cone" (I seem to be making a lot of terms up for this thing..) for the side out of insulation foam. I'll make a mold of this one and cast a duplicate for the other side. No way I want to try to make 2 of those identical by hand.

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again, all I can say is really good work. how far are you with the circuits?

just one tip: you'll save yourself a lot of trouble if you use detachable ribbon cables to connect the PCBs (or something similar). if you solder everything together, it's a royal pain trying to get it into the helmet (and I always get the length of the cables wrong ^^).
 
TF_Productions said:
just one tip: you'll save yourself a lot of trouble if you use detachable ribbon cables to connect the PCBs (or something similar). if you solder everything together, it's a royal pain trying to get it into the helmet (and I always get the length of the cables wrong ^^).

Totally with you on that one. On my PBC layouts, the visor bars all have individual 3-pin connectors (left, below)

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...and the chin PCBs have a 12-pin and a 2-pin. Of course, those schematics need to be revised for a set-up with much fewer LEDs, so that PBC layout is largely useless. I haven't been doing much with the wiring as of late, been spending more time on the "analog" portion of the build. I need to to figure out just how many LEDs I'll need for the chins to fully illuminate, so I'll probably have to do some breadboard testing on that first.

flying_squirl said:
Jesus! where've you been hiding?! why didnt i see this before?

brilliant work. very impressed with your commitment!

Hiding in the noob forum! I think I had like, 3 posts when I decided to start this, so it had to go here.

Small update. I don't know why I decided to make the ear cones out of insulation foam. Foam is a bitch to work with, and I didn't have any UreShell on hand either... so after a lot of pointless paint/clay/bondo on the foam cone (white one) I decided to scrap it and lathe a new one from wood. One pass, no sanding... much easier. Also the dimensions are exact to my schematics, instead of relying on the foam glues around a plastic tube that was "pretty close"

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I did some more sanding/shaping on the helmet, but I'll show you guys that when I have a bit more work to show off. Right now its all small stuff. Hope to be mounting the ears up once I make a couple resin copies later this week.
 
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So much more shaping to do... I put this up against some reference shots (not going to do a side by side here... ugh) and I need to shave the bottom parts of the ear towards the back. Turns out they're not exactly level like I had sculpted originally. Also, the chin is pulled back where it should be perpendicular to the ground when worn.

Its hard to get a bead on the exact shape of this thing. Daft Punk changed the design in 2004, and also again recently (albeit much more gradually) for their recent Electroma movie. Each stage of primer and sanding gets me a little closer....
 
damn! thats looking nice!

only question is how are you going about seeing out of it?

but wow, thats a lot of detail and accuracy!
Amazing job so far!
 
If you don't have an incredibly high paying job for doing this sort of thing, the world isn't fair at all. Really, You should be one of the guys designing and building props for Starwars or something. (If you aren't already) Amazing job on this. The amount of attention you are putting into detail is insane. Great accuracy.
 
DerKraken said:
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So much more shaping to do... I put this up against some reference shots (not going to do a side by side here... ugh) and I need to shave the bottom parts of the ear towards the back. Turns out they're not exactly level like I had sculpted originally. Also, the chin is pulled back where it should be perpendicular to the ground when worn.

Its hard to get a bead on the exact shape of this thing. Daft Punk changed the design in 2004, and also again recently (albeit much more gradually) for their recent Electroma movie. Each stage of primer and sanding gets me a little closer....
I can't wait to see the LED's in, it's looking amazing so far
 
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I am in awe by your work so far, especially since I am a big fan of Daft Punk. I will def. be keeping up with your progress. Keep up the good work.
 
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