can I hire you to build Northon’s helmet? :) the helmet is already designed and 3D printed, I just need a hand with the custom pcb board and led placement. ❤
I wonder if anyone could modernize these. As I’ve heard, the helmets used new tech, was obviously heavy, and if you look towards the end of their lifespan, the Discovery helmets were showing their age. *Fast.* Now you gotta make Thomas’s helmet
That's a good point - I could probably use a flexible OLED screen to make up their main displays. You can also get them in variants that are mostly transparent so you'd still be able to see through it :)
daft punk helmets are my hyperfixation, having one of these would be my dream. Also the shape of guyman’s helmet gets slightly elongated between discovery/haa and tron/RAM, not sure when exactly but the shape of ur helmet more closely matches RAM. if it feels like the positions of the LEDs are off a bit, that’s why.
This video was the closest I've seen so far in trying to figure out how to make a fully functional helmet from the game Ruiner. Would love to get a more in depth understanding on the custom pcbs and build.
This is an absolutely wild build, it looks awesome! The idea to rely on the holes between the LED strips for vision is honestly pretty smart, I was wondering how to do that for my own build someday so maybe I'll take that approach. Definitely seems like a nice way to be totally faceless but still be able to see. If I might ask, how well did that end up working for visibility? Do you think you could wear it in public and not bump into stuff?
Great question, without the visor on it worked pretty well. However, it was mostly because I tinted it too dark. My biggest recommendation would be to have a button somewhere on the helmet that activates/deactivates the LEDs on the visor as the light reflecting off of the visor made it hard to see when walking
I cringed so hard when I saw you bend the PCBs, but was amazed that you got so much deflection out of them! How did you make the faceshield, it looks like it was sagged into a mould?
I made a little vacuum forming box with a buck mold of the visor. I heated some PETG plastic in my oven and then pulled it over the mold with the vacuum running :)
As in: who designed them, or who physically made the pcbs? I did the design, and then I had a fab house make them - I think it was either: SEEED Studio, PCB way, or dirtyPCB that made these ones specifically.
Hey captain! I’m almost done with Tomas Helmet, just struggling with the power to lit the 200 LEDs ws2812b. I want to use a usb battery pack 5v output 24000mah, but I’m experiencing a lot of flickering and color mismatch using wled. I searched almost everywhere and thought myself maybe captain has a clue!
@seanmcgannon3433 I have no plans on releasing the files and/or a tutorial at this time, but if there's enough interest I may make them available. Given the complexity of this project, I think I'd want to update the files a bit to make them easier to solder than the version you see in the video which obviously requires some extra work. I've had a few people ask at this point, and I'm definitely keeping a list! If I did make these files available, I'd likely throw them on my Website for like $10 USD. Would you pay that much for access to all the 3D files, the PCB files, and a brief instruction guide on how to connect things together?
@@BLAKERONb - not selling it just yet given I haven't gotten enough interest. HOWEVER, there is something cool I have in mind coming up in which I'll try to release all the files with. It'll be worth the wait, trust me 😉
Absolutely! The theory is simple: buy some t-shirt dye, dump it in a big pot, heat it to an exact below-boiling temperature, and then dip your clear visor in for about 30s to 1min. After which, throw it in some cold water. Literally rinse and repeat process until you get the shade you want This was pretty hard to do though; the first time I tried it I left my visor in for too long and it ended up deforming it :( For flat visors you can use the tint stickers used for tinting car windows You can also try "tint spray paint", but it's not the easiest to see through
I had it chromed at a trophy making manufacturer (for sports trophies). It was a process called vacuum metallization. However, you can use a graphite paint base with a chrome spray paint. I used about 1000 ws2812b RGB LEDs for this project
Last question mate, what about the code? Where did you start… any good resources to suggest? Pretty familiar with arduino but I guess it can take ages to properly code light animations and effects… thank you 😊
Arduino and neopixels are where to start - tonnes of resources online. You could probably find an open source library that does animations across a grid of neopixels. Best thing to do is download something that does roughly what you want it to do, then reverse engineer it to do what you want it to do
@@CaptainSteel Thank you so much! You're the best.... What battery did you use? how many and was it lasting at least an hour with all those leds and boards?
Hi@@davidlaborieux3016 - I used a 2S LiPo battery for this project (you can find them on Amazon for fairly cheap). 2S == 7.4V nominal voltage which is too high for these LEDs (they like to run at 3-4V. I designed in some buck converters to power the wide array of LEDs for this helmet (about 6 bucks in total) The battery I purchased was 6400mAh and didn't sit in the helmet itself - it was strapped to my waist via velcro. That being said, I know that this helmet can run for about 3 hours on that size of battery until requiring a recharge. Hope that helps!
@@CaptainSteel it does help buddy! You’re generous with your explanations, it is much appreciated as I started building Tomas’s helmet. I yet to figure out how I will stick the leds to the visor … don’t hesitate if you have any suggestion ;) Did you controlled the leds through a phone app via Bluetooth?
@@davidlaborieux3016 I'm thinking I may throw some of the files up online with an optional donation for anyone that's interested. Would that be something you'd like? Essentially, I laser cut a piece of acrylic that held my custom PCBs in place and then hot glued that into the helmet
why dont you just glue a normal ledstrip on the inside? they are much more flexable, i mean if you can get a hardboard inside then a ledstrip surely is noproblem
Visibility would be reduced to 0 then, my custom board design allowed me to see through the little holes between the boards. Next design I'm going to make my PCBs totally transparent (where possible) :)
Iteration always makes things easier! With everything I learned from this helmet, there are some BIG changes that I've already taken into account when making the second helmet :)
@@douglaschristensen3008 If there's enough interest I would consider doing it. Given how much work they are the prices might be somewhat outrageous though! If there's a LOT of interest, I could possibly make a small production run of them~
@@douglaschristensen3008 As it stands now, for a one off it'd be a couple thousand dollars (that includes all the bells and whistles like lights, programming, and final touches). Again, that's if I'm building it for 1 person
ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vDX1bJxmKd0.html Fun fact: one can indeed see through it, but once the black (the color doesn't matter, it can be transparent) visor is attached, only colors can be seen
