Foam Baby's first Spartan

[James]

Well, I really failed at finishing this build thread, so.....here it is.
To answer the question of weird paint reaction....I think it was the automotive reacting with the plastidip. Didn't seem to have a problem when I put it right on the foam so....I dunno.

Anyway, I finally finished the suit, more or less. I changed to a 3D printed chest piece which I scaled WAY too big... my undersuit became black tactical work pants and a long sleeve black shirt. This all happened because of the LA event, kinda kicked me to see if I could cobble it together.

Things I finished in 2ish-3 weeks before flying it to LA:

-Cut a new seam on the already painted chest rig to make it easier to get into, added clips to it, and the underarm pieces
-Added foam and fake leather "seals" to the chest around the arms.
-Installed straps and clips on shins, thighs, and shoulders
-Installed the gold visor
-Installed fans in helmet
-Glued in magnets for the little bottom piece of the helmet that was made removable to get my head in
-Cut neck seal bought from WelshCreations and installed velcro
-Installed LEDs and LED covers in chest
-Stole "Armor Ability" module from SpartanProps which is a little small for this but worked well...
-Wired LED Wifi chip and programmed lighting effects/scenes to be controllable from handler's cell phone
-LEDs run off a 5v usb battery bank. (With a solar panel just to feel cool...but it's hidden inside anyway)
-Glued boot pieces to old boots, even though they aren't quite right...but time crunch.
-Added a tactical leg pouch to left leg. Bought on amazon and weathered with paint brush
-Printed the missing "ab plate" for the bottom of the chest in flexible filament then DROWNED in plastidip
-Printed out decals on clear sticker paper and begged them to stay on long enough for the event...most did
-Installed acrylic tacpad screen I had done as a test with some little "pendant LEDs" I use for necklaces (Meaning I dumped a ton of hot glue into the tacpad and held them in place while it cooled....poor mans light diffuser for the "power" light though)

Things I didn't do:
-Proper inner thigh pieces
-Undersuit/ab and spine pieces
-helmet mic system
-Sleep

Things I did, and regret:
-Dropping my helmet after the event and cracking it


Next steps for this guy will be:
Minor:
-Print a better belt/cod so it doesn't look like a 5 year old crayon drawing
-Fix or replace boots
-Repair travel damage (ie. on my Commando Shoulder)
-Install Mic System

Less than minor:
-Replace thighs
-Reprint chest in normal person size so I can put my hands together and hold a weapon
-Possibly remake helmet after the dropping incident, but also because it could probably be a touch bigger


Anyway, here are the pretty, pretty photos we all came for:
Neck Seal

Oversized test fit

LED tests

Fans and TPU Ab Plate

First suit up minus boots

Stickers and Final Checks

Packing for Flights

At the event

THE DAMAGE

Wrap up with one of my favorite shots from the red carpet with TurboCharizard :

 

[Electraknite]

hope I see you at a con in this spring . Will u share how you made ur lights phone controlled? I’ve been wanting to do the same thing with mine but I don’t know anything at all. Brain is empty.

 

[James]

hope I see you at a con in this spring . Will u share how you made ur lights phone controlled? I’ve been wanting to do the same thing with mine but I don’t know anything at all. Brain is empty.

I think I'll be bringing this suit (with maybe a few fixes/upgrades but nothing major) to the Calgary Expo, trying to get a MK7 done or mostly done for Otafest.

The LEDs are pixel diodes that are individually addressable: BTF-LIGHTING 100pcs WS2812B Addressable 5050 Smart RGB LED Pixel Light on Black Heat Sink PCB Board for Arduino 5V DC : Amazon.ca: Electronics

Those are connected to an ESP8226 Wifi chip: IZOKEE 4M Bytes WLAN WiFi Internet Development Board Base on ESP8266 ESP-12F for D1 Mini (Pack of 3) : Amazon.ca: Electronics

I know both of those say unavailable now but anything similar will work. There is a bit of soldering involved and you'll need to make sure you know what pins you're connecting to on the chip, 5v, ground and a GPIO for data. You have to tell the program (in the next part) what GPIO pin it's attached to so it sends info to the right place.

Then for control, it was actually super easy. I flashed the chip using this:

Getting Started - WLED Project

kno.wled.ge

It's designed for indoor or outdoor addressable LED strips, the kind you see people doing rock shows on their house with.

There is also a smartphone app. From there you just tell it how many pixels you have and then you can control it from the app if they're on the same network, or tell it to broadcast its own AP which your phone will connect to and pull up the controls.

That app allows you to program each pixel to its own color with full mixing, set different "segments" (ie. the spine is 5 LEDs but is one segment) and then set and save effects and presets.