Flexible Wiring

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spookyshadow

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Hi!

As some of you might know I plan on lighting the shoulders and shins of my MKVI armor. I was wondering: Would there be a way to run my power and ground (negative) wires all from my chest/back plate? What I mean is, I would like to have 1 main power source and switch for all lights (both arms and legs, and helmet) without having wires showing outside the armor. Please let me know what you guys can think of!

Thanks alot,
Rob
 
Th3 FETT MAN said:
all you have to do is run the wires under the cloth youll be wearing

Yeah but then the wires will have limited amount of movement, and I would be afraid they'd break on me. Also I would have to run the wires through the under armor at the same time as I put on the solid armor, which could be very difficult. I cant leave the wires inside the under armor cause then putting that on I might accidently pull out a loose wire.

Thanks for the help, but any other ideas?
 
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Well you cant make it wireless. If you want it to go all to the backpack, you haveto have wires running to it.
 
ok what i was saying was you put the wires under your cloth if your afraid of them breaking then the wires your using must be brittle and if your afraid of them coming off then just use some of wire connectors get male and female
picture of Female
wire_connector.jpg

Male and female
wire-disconnects.jpg

Heres a diagram i made real fast to show what i mean
Untitled-4.png


and for running them from under armor to solid armor wouldnt be hard you just cut a hole and put them though it
Also you want your wires to limited movement, you dont want them to move around because if they move around they might break or come loose
Then what you do is make a channel in the clothing to slip the wire through so when you put it on the is no interference with you and the wires and they would be inplace and never a problem
you dont need electricians to help you with this im not an electrician but i have worked with wiring and LED's and many thing for costuming
 
Well you cant make it wireless. If you want it to go all to the backpack, you haveto have wires running to it.

Heh, I understand it can't be wireless. I was just hopping that maybe someone has come across this problem before and could point me in the right direction, or tell me how they went about doing there own armor. Sorry if I'm comming of as anoying.

I love the idea with the male and female end connectors! Never would have thought of that, thanks TH3 FETT MAN! But:
Also you want your wires to limited movement, you dont want them to move around because if they move around they might break or come loose
what about the movement of my legs and arms? wouldn't I need all the movement I can get so as to not look like a stick figure? lol, I wouldn't want to bend at the waist and end up disconnecting the male or female wire harnesses.
Thanks,
Rob
 
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well thats why you need to measure out your arms and legs in wire and bend them and add a little extra to that and you put cloth over it to keep them off your body but they still have a little room to move around
 
Th3 FETT MAN said:
well thats why you need to measure out your arms and legs in wire and bend them and add a little extra to that and you put cloth over it to keep them off your body but they still have a little room to move around
Ok, it's just that last time I tried that I ended up with the wire "looping" in the under armor due to the excess needed for a full range of motion. The "looping" is what I'm afraid will get pinched and end up breaking the wire. Is it possible I'm not using a high enough gauge wire? I didn't want to go above 15 AWG due to the fact that you could see it below the under armor.
 
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just use the same gauge wire but put a wire clip(to hold them together) and put those every 3 inches to keep it from looping and piching and ending up breaking then put the cloth over them
you can just use zip ties if its easy then finding wire clips that will work for what you want
lot-of-10-zip-ties-master-350x350.gif
 
If you have wires running through your clothes there will always be a possibility of wires getting pulled out while moving, just the way it is. With trial and error I am sure you could find good ways to route your wires. I dont think the wire size you would need for this would affect your movements at all, its pretty thin. I think you need to decide if the convenience of one switch is worth all the work to run the wires and worry about them being pulled out. I am not trying to talk you out of it, just some input.
By the way I do think it would be cool to have it wired with one source, it will be a good project. Possibly use a lithium ion battery or something. Menards home store had some Black and Decker Lithium stuff on sale. I picked a few things up myself. Of course using something like that would also require alot of work but cool none the less. Good luck.
 
Thanks for the support smick6,

you can just use zip ties if its easy then finding wire clips that will work for what you want
What are these wire clips you speak of Th3 FETT MAN? Are you talking about the male/female wire harness connectors?
 
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so basically a tie-wrap, or zip-tie then? Or are they completely different? Would I not have to make holes in the under armor with the use of said clips?
 
Unless you're using some weird kind of wire or you are taking tons of blows from knives into the area of the wires, they're not going to break.
 
you can always use 9V battery leads to connect the parts to the underwiring. I would suggest making an underarmor of sorts with all the leads running out of it. You would connect it to the power source using 2 - 9V battery clips. Then each armor piece would attach in the same manner. You're going to have to be careful when you are designing the initial under wiring... For your shoulders you will want the connection leads to be in a spot that won't get pulled very far, as for the shoulders you would want it no further up your arm than where your rotor cup connects to your arm. You will have to include loose wiring (via a pouch of some sort) on all of the flex points... your shoulders, around your thighs and somewhere along your back.

For your back you would be best off to connect the wire in say 5 spots via very strong glue. Then inbetween every connection point leave 1 inch of excess wire allowing you to lean over.

For your shoulder you will want to attach the wire to the top part of your shoulder, then allow 2 or 3 inches of wire to be coiled in a sealed pouch of some sort, and attach the wire again a little ways down your shoulder, probably where you will attach the connection lead for your shoulder.

Thighs same way, but I'm not sure on how much loose wire you are going to want to leave. You won't want to leave more than 2 inches or so loose, but you may want to attach it in 2 or 3 spots allowing each connection spot to have 2 inches of loose wire concealed in a pouch.

For your helmet you are a lot better off using its own power source otherwise you are going to have to fight a power cable EVERY time you take off your helmet... not to mention it wouldn't look as cool if people saw a lot of wires hanging out around your helmet if you didn't tuck them in properly.
 
You could make the inside of all your armor peices "chassis ground" that way, you will have very short ground wires comming from you various devices and you will only have to run long power wires from your main source. This will cut down on the amount of wire you will have to use. You could place aluminum tape on the inside and connect a wire to it (and each peice together, Boot to shin to thigh to cod to chest/back to helmet, to arms, ect). Use a large gauge wire (at least a 16 awg) and you can use 20 awg for power for everything else.



If you check Mc Master Carr, they sell metal tape that conductive adheasives on them. you can solder the them and they work very well for carring current for things like LED's, fans and things like that. Once you have the tape in place and all connecions made, you can glass over it to help keep it in place.



Hope this helps



And I hope I havent violated any rules by posting without introducing myself. I've been a lurker nube for a while now. If I have, I appologize.



Cire36.
 
While your post is helpful, this is a pretty bad necro, which is a bad thing around here. ALWAYS check the date of the last post before responding. If it is over a month or so old, you're better off just PMing the original poster (if it's that important). Otherwise, I'd just leave it alone.



Make sure you know the rules around here. People tend to get a little touchy about things.
 
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