I'm Captain Intrigue, this is part 2 of how to build a superhero helmet with night vision,
super hearing and voice changing capabilities.
In the last episode i built the helmet using EVA foam and i painted it.
In this episode i'll be adding some decorative pieces and wiring up some accessories.
So let's get started.
I needed to figure out a way to determine exact dimensions of parts of the helmet so
i could 3d print some decorative plastic pieces for it.
To do that i applied masking tape and traced along the outline.
I then removed the tape, stuck it to a piece of paper, cut it out, and checked it for accuracy.
I then took a photo of it next to my cutting board so that the inches scale was visible.
Then i drew a 6 inch line in Sketchup and imported the image from my phone and placed
it next to the line.
Then i rescaled the image until the 6 inches in the image lined up with the 6 inch line
in sketchup.
At this point i knew that the scale was properly aligned.
I then drew over the template in sketchup and 3d printed a test piece to make sure it
fit the helmet properly.
I had to tweak this a few times until i got it to fit perfectly, and then i 3d printed
the final design.
I then used a heat gun to heat the plastic and bent it to fit the helmet contour.
It took a bit of trial and error but i was eventually able to make it fit perfectly.
Then i added a thin coat of barge cement to the helmet and the plastic piece.
I let it sit for about 5 minutes until it was tacky, i applied a second coat to both,
again let it get tacky, and then carefully stuck them both together.
Since the barge cement is such a strong adhesive, once the 2 parts touch, there's no pulling
them apart without damaging the helmet.
Then i repeated the same process with other areas of the helmet.
First by forming the plastic using a heat gun, Then applying 2 thin coats of barge cement,
then sticking the 2 pieces together.
The decorative plastic pieces help the helmet to match the rest of the style of the suit
and they also give it a little more rigidity.
As i said before, this helmet is just a prototype like the rest of the suit, but on the next
suit i'll be making molds and laminating the helmet and armor out of kevlar to make it
bulletproof.
One of my design philosophies is the idea of only trying to improve the design in small
steps that are more manageable.
If you try to do too much with a design iteration, you're more likely to fail and become discouraged.
So when i design and build something, i do the best that i can at the moment, but i always
keep notes of all my mistakes and about ideas for future improvements.
This way i can try my ideas for improvements out on the next version and my likelihood
of success goes up.
I couldn't find any headphones that fit my needs exactly for the helmet, so i decided
it would just be easier to just build my own.
I bought a bunch of small speakers on ebay and tested them out for sound quality.
This speaker had by far the best sound so i designed and 3d printed a housing for it.
The speaker housing is attached to the helmet using barge cement.
I had to design the part with a slight curve built into it so it could sit flat against
the helmet.
This actually took me many hours and quite a few test prints to fit properly but eventually
i got it.
This housing will be used later to mount the speaker and some other parts for the super
hearing.
The next step was to attach the microphone for the voice changer.
If you remember in the voice changer episode, i had been using a headset microphone and
i was very happy with the quality of the sound from it, so i decided to just snip off the
headset part and attach the microphone to the outside of the helmet.
Attaching it to the outside was much easier than trying to squeeze it inside of the helmet.
I designed and 3d printed a mounting bracket to attach the microphone to one of the decorative
panels on the side.
This actually worked out nice since the microphone arm is adjustable and then i can move it right
up to my mouth when i'm using the voice changer.
Both headphone speakers are then inserted into the housings and screwed into place using
self tapping screws specially meant for plastic.
I made these LED mounts that will attach to the ear housings on the side of the helmet.
I decided that i'll be adding some really bright 5 watt infrared LEDS to enhance the
night vision goggles.
The infrared LED's shine an invisible light that the camera picks up and sends the video
to the LCD goggles.
I'm also adding some 5 watt bright white LED's that will act as flashlights.
I soldered the LED's in series, inserted them into the housings, and then pressed in some
LED lenses that i had lying around.
And these will be attached and wired into the helmet later.
I needed a cover for the headphones so i designed a housing and 3d printed it on my Makergear.
I wanted to be able to turn the LED's on or off so i attached a switch under each ear
housing, one for turning on the infrared LED's and another for turning on the flashlight
LED's.
If you remember from my previous episode on super hearing, whenever you amplify a microphone
and feed it into a speaker, if they get too close together then feedback develops.
To overcome that i designed the headphones so that the microphone is attached to a vertical
antenna.
This keeps it away from the speaker and prevents any feedback from occurring, and i thought
it actually kind of looked cool too.
At this point i felt like the helmet was missing something, so i decided to add some more decorative
3d printed plastic pieces around the sides.
I think was a good choice and it really made the design stand out more.
Instead of attaching decorative plastic along the top of the helmet, i decided it be wise
to attach a large section of velcro instead.
This gives me a big area to attach things to the helmet in the future that i hadn't
thought about in the design.
I've also noticed that a lot of tactical helmets have velcro in the same area for the same
reasons.
I used the same technique of applying masking tape, tracing it, then using it as a template
to cut out the velcro, and apply it in sections.
The velcro has an adhesive backing so it stuck to the helmet nicely.
The condenser microphones for the super hearing
can now be installed into the antennas.
I designed the antennas with small grooves in them so i could route the wires down into
the housings for the super hearing.
For now i'm just stuffing the wires into the housings since these will be hooked up later.
The LED housings can also be attached and wired into the switches at this point.
Then everything is put back together.
And here's what the helmet looks like so far.
Some people had commented that i should have built a motorized mechanism to lower the night
vision goggles down onto my eyes, but i tried that in a previous design, and it just added
a lot of unnecessary weight and complexity, and flipping the switch and waiting for the
goggles to retract was actually slower than actually reaching up and pulling them down
over my eyes.
Whenever possible i try to use the design philosophy of KISS.
Keep it simple stupid.
So that's all that i have time for in this episode, since i'm still waiting on part.
In the next episode i'll be upgrading the night vision goggles, and i'll finish the
super hearing.
KEYE radio.
Police have given KEYE radio an update regarding what could be the 3rd missing persons case
in the last 2 months.
Miss Kambria Tavonatti, her abduction was apparently witnessed by a mall worker just
before Christmas.
We'll get more details to you as they become available.
Aw miss...you dropped your bags.
Oh what have we here?
Hmmm...
Christmas beans!!
Good stuff!
Love my Christmas beans.