HAlo ODST Helmet - Electronics?

Hey all, (first post! WOOT!)

A mate and I are starting construction on Halo ODST armor, and I was thinking how cool it would be to insert electronics into the armor/helmet via a raspberry pi board/Linux/Android system.

I'm wondering if anyone has done anything similar, or has any advice on how to do some of the following things:\

• Bluetooth/walkie-talkie system
• Bluetooth connection to Android/iOS for recieving/making calls
• Playing music to internal or external speakers
• controlling helmet fans
• controlling cooling system for chest piece
  

We're still in the initial phases of helmet/armor design, so I'm hoping to start working on this as soon as the helmets have Resin/Fiberglass on them.

Thanks for your time!

Hanslow

Couldn't you use a regular bluetooth ear piece for making and receiving calls? The problem with walkie talkies is you need to press a button on them so I don't know how to go about doing that. If you want to make a voice amplifier you could buy one of those speaker and headphone sets that tour guides and college professors use. Just glue the headset into the helmet and hide the speaker behind the chest plate. You could then use that to play music too. You'll have to explain what you mean by controlling the helmet fan and cooling system. Side note: I don't recommend adding electronics to the helmet before you are done painting. There is a lot of sanding dust and other particles that will mess with the circuits especially something like a microphone and speakers.

Practical electronics for your helmet build are (in order of importance); an exhaust fan, flashlight, and voice distorter.

The fan is critical for comfort. You won't last 5 mins without building up moisture and heat. Aside from the discomfort, your visor will fog up.

Flashlights, because it looks awesome when photographed.

Voice distortion, I don't see this often. Is more a storm trooper thing. Makes you around like you are always taking through a radio.

What's the best layout/orientation for a fan? I was thinking of having one that blows air in and one that blows out by putting two sets of small holes in the front of the helmet near the mouth, each with their own fan. Thoughts?

Think of your helmet cooling circuit like a motor bike one....only without the whole bike and moving thing happening.

I've read a lot that have the fan at the back and pulls outside air in and then I is routed to the visor. Perhaps the location is good for fitting, but drawing in the front (around your mouth guard area) and top (around the top of the visor areas) would have cooler, less humid air first over your visor and face, then circulating over your noggin. As for the rest of the electronics..... Go nano matey! VOX on your 2-way will have you in constant comms to your mates without needin PTT ( a button to push). Thermal control for the fans via arduino or your raspberry pi is an idea I am trying to get sorted myself. That and Bluetooth link up for the cooling systems for the rest of the armour.

I say go full throttle!

thank you for posting this thread, i have been searching for weeks on how to do a cooling system for my odst helmet i have. i have 2 vents on the side with mesh was gonna put one blowing in and one blowing out. hopefully its not to loud. and the bluetooth head set sounds like a winner for being able to make phone calls as who wants to constantly take their helmet on and off to talk lol!

I suggest an aker voice amp so people can hear you, or even a Halloween costume voice amp, helmet fan is a must like everyone has stated, as far as a bluethooth those can get complicated but i know people have used them in their helmets namely for sound and sometimes lights. it might be hard to make or receive phone calls, not sure on how you would answer them

Here are my thoughts on a phone/voice setup:
Create a recepticle in one of your gauntlets to slip your phone in, making it look like Reach's TACPAD. A TACPAD wallpaper would improve the effect.
Wear a basic bluetooth headset under your helmet.
To make or receive calls, just look at your gauntlet and tap the screen (needs touchscreen-friendly gloves or fingerless gloves).
For voice distortion, an app that takes voice in from your headset and outputs it through the phone speaker. Anyone found such an app?

Downside: phone and headset are always on. Be sure to bring a charger (and spare battery if possible) with you. Another option is a wired headset running out of your helmet and down your arm.

Some electronics considerations. Most microphones are not dynamic they are FET -based so they need to have a biasing circuit for them to work properly. Generally this comes from the device it's attached to. But one sure making a complicated audio distribution system in your suit you may not have a place to inject power.

Also keep in mind many cell phones now use a short pulse of electricity to a sense of what kind of headset is attached to them. My stupid Windows phone even if you plot of Jack Intuit will not output audio onto that Jack in till there is a reasonable load. For my testing 300 ohms is good enough. The same thing with the microphone. I ended up putting a 22 kilo ohm resistor across the Mike pins on the phone so that even when I disconnected the phone won't go crazy.

As far as Bluetooth goes I would avoid it because it requires batteries and it's not very easy to make a receiver that ties into a Bluetooth headset. Where as working of dumb wires is quite simple. You ought to try out throat mics. Their audio bandwidth isn't great but neither is Spartan communication. Think back to season two of red versus blue. Or your first Xbox live battle on a DSL connection. The audio quality leaves much to be desired.

By using a simple stupid Mike you can easily turn into a PA that is bidirectional. In fact depending on how crafty you want to get you could easily add a microphone on the receive side somewhere in a glove or wrist gauntlet. This way you can hear other people by holding your hand to them etc. You can your earbuds so that you can hear them more easily to. Or if you're really crafty you can add to microphones in the light pods of your helmet and pipe that audio onto your internal headset this way you can still maintain some hearing through the helmet. I would highly recommend you install some kind of automatic gain control . Else if someone whacks you on the helmet you may lose your hearing. These circuits are all rather trivial using basic integrated circuits you can find even at a dying RadioShack.



As far as push to talk is concerned again that is rather trivial as long as you have the correct switching system in line some radios will switch to ground some will switch in line.. My ham radio gear does the latter. In fact I'm going to add my ham radio handheld to the back pods of my suit because both my mom and I are licensed hams and she will be at the convention as my handler. She will be dressed as Dr. Halsey ... She'll be wearing a covert earpiece and wrist microphone.



I've got a few buttons on the inner collar of my chest piece and one of them is push to talk the radio.
The other button triggers Cortana on the Windows phone.

Peter...

I think it would be cool to see an ODST helmet that has the green scan lines and tinting effect that the ones in game had. You could have green LEDs lining the edges of the visor and white LEDs aimed at the wearer's face, then once triggered, the green LEDs scan up or down the visor, then the white LEDs fade up to reveal the wearer's face. I've wanted to do this myself, but other projects have kept me from playing around with it.

Wal-Mart sells a voice changer for five bucks but it only has like 4 settings robot, child, old man, and I think alien idk love these ideas though. I built in a audio Jack into my last helmet so I could have and amplified listening device or music going. Also has and internal light on the inside cuz it was freakin awesome to turn it on and be able to see into the helmet.