kiyotei

Cool thanks.

anyone have any suggestions on making trading cards? I don't want to use the very expensive do it yourself sheets you can get at the office supply stores. I want to print a batch to hand out, double sided, my photo on front and some basic info on the back. There are plenty of sites online but didn't see any that had an appropriate layout.

What I did was to alternate abs glue and super glue. I used abs glue as the primary glue but would put dabs of super glue to function as my clamps. I did not glue the full length of my thighs in one shot. I started at one end and worked my way up. I would apply a few inches of abs glues and end with an inch of super glue. I would clamp what I could, tape what I could and just use my own two hands to hold the super glue part. Once that set in 30 secs or so I could set the piece down and let the abs glue do its job. Then a little later I would come back, add another section of abs glue followed by a small section of super glue....

I need to glue a piece of abs to a resin gun handle. I tried super glue and it did not stick???? wow didn't think that was even possible. What glues would you guys suggest? I'm thinking epoxy but not sure that's much different than super glue???

not sure why you would want to combine the two? I thought the whole point of the respirator system was because of how the mic was built into it. Why bother using the respirator system if you are not going to use the mic?

I added links to video of me demo'ing the mic and also my old radio shack clip mic.

You can't leave the mic open because it rests on your neck and every time you move your head you'll hear it scratching against your neck. If you look at my thread on the "tiny amp" you can see my sound system. Its mounted in my helmet. I use the coiled cable between the helmet and PTT button to make it easier for taking the helmet on and off with out having some one restuffing the wire under my chest armor.

Microphone Cable Pin Out The pin out on the throat microphone is not standard. The voice line is the middle section of the barrel while the ground is the back section (standard). The tip is for the ear piece. Photo 1 shows the pin out. This pin out will not work with any standard amplifier such as the Radio Shack amp. Most amplifiers expect the voice to be on the tip of the plug. You will need to either build an adapter cable or cut the end off of the throat microphone cable and put a new end on with the proper pin out. I believe most amps are also expecting a 3/8� (3mm) where as the throat microphone has a 2.5mm plug. See my warning below about cutting the original cables. ---------- How to Power the Microphone The throat microphone is a powered microphone. You will need to run 1.5 volts through the voice line. You can run higher volt levels but you may need to increase the resistor you are using. I found that if you run the voltage from the amp you can get loop back ground noise. I do not know how to eliminate it. I recommend running power from a separate battery, such as AA battery (1.5 volts). You will most likely need a capacitor on the voice line to the amp input. Figure 2 shows how to wire the microphone with power. Those of you with more knowledge of electronics might recommend different values for the resistor and capacitors. --------- Warning Regarding Cutting the cables: If you plan on cutting the original cable and modifying it you need to know that the cable has 2 sets of wires in it. One set is for the ear piece and that can be ignored. The second set is for the microphone. These wires are very fine and can be difficult to work with. If you have experience working with a soldering iron you should be OK. To make matters even worse, the wire inside the PPT cable is even finer AND it is coated with a resin for insulation. You must remove the resin before you can solder those wires. I found attempting to melt some solder onto the wire and then remove the solder using solder wick will clean the wire up nicely. Image of original microphone cable after cutting off the plug. (I do not have any photos of the PPT cables cut) --------- My Cable Assembly: So here is the cable I built. I did cut off ends of the original cable. As I said before I found the 2.5mm plugs and jacks to be such poor quality that they would not maintain a connection. So I went with RCA (yes that's RCA). I use RCA between my amp and the mic. ---------- I replaced the PTT buttong because I thought it was big. I'm a small guy so bigger guys or at least guys with roomier gloves may have no complaints. I used a surface mount momentary on switch which I bought at Radio Shack. They have two types. I got the larger one because the button sticks further out. I found with the smaller which I tried first that it was too hard to work with gloves on. So from the helmet down to below the neck line of my armor I use the coiled cable. That keeps me from having to have someone stuff the cable back under my armor every time I take my helmet off. I then run a flat cable down my arm to my hand. I can run the cable under my underarmor so you cannot see it. New PTT Button: -------- Full Cable Assembly ---------- You won't see the power for the mic in my cable. That is wired up to my amp inside my helmet. Here is the updated video link Here's the link to the demo of my old radio shack clip mic. It sounds OK in the demo but people always had trouble hearing me.

Nice job so far. AP is great armor. Once finished you will not notice all the little oops you make. After a couple of troops you will have enough marks on the armor that you no longer care about oops. Hey an oops is battle damage.

nice images that helps a lot. I hope I can drill out the resin otherwise I'll have to go the wood route.

Hey Guys, I'm building an EA11 blaster and I bought a resin handle. I'm trying to figure out how to make the trigger work. I have to wire it to my electronic blaster core. I have a small surface mount momentary on switch to make it fire. I have no idea how to do it. Should I mill out the "pocket" at the base of the trigger and insert the momentary switch inside? How to make the trigger pivot? ----------

I think the key to that amp is the large speaker. Many of us troopers are using very tiny speakers and no matter how you drive them you are not gonna get a lot of sound out of them. Unfortunately none of us troopers could hide an amp/speaker combo like that in our armor. The sandies can in their backpack.

NOt sure how you will starve a planet. Its not like they won't be producing their own food.

hmmm Odd I checked their listing and it did not show that they carry Zap a Gap. Perhaps they don't update it much. Thanks.

Is the plate that has rivets on both sides of the gap rivited to a piece of abs? If so you most likely will split that piece in the future. I thick piece of rubber (white) is better. No worries for now, you can just wait till it breaks.

I think the other guys have covered it. You must remove the velcro and glue the fronts of your thighs, shins. If you can glue the forearms and still get them on, do it. Once you glue the thigh fronts you'll be able to properly attach the ammo packs that are currently missing. I had no idea you could get AP to build your armor. I have AP and love it. Its a great kit.

Let me rephrase my question. I am only referring to a Star Wars scenario. Forget Earth. In the Clone wars tv show and movie, how could the Federation conquer a single planet? What would it take to control an entire planet?

[Edit] Let me rephrase my question. I am only referring to a Star Wars scenario. Forget Earth. In the Clone wars tv show and movie, how could the Federation conquer a single planet? What would it take to control an entire planet? OK, this is aimed at you military guys out there. I've been watching the Clone cartoon show and was thinking, what would it take to invade a planet? Figure most inhabital planets are gonna be Earth like. The shear size of a planet and a population in the billions would require a massive ground assault. If you look at just the Earth, the bigger countries have armies that have several million service men (includes support personel). I was thinking the only way you could really conquer a planet would be to have a space ship that had the fire power to destroy whole cities in a single shot. I just can't imagine any type of ground assault working. What do those with military knowledge think?

any one know what stores sell Zap a Gap glue and Zip Kicker? Or is only available online? I googled but didn't see any stores that sell it.

Nice work but you should really wear a mask when spray painting. There's a lot paint in the air that you are breathing in. Watching the ear drilling and also the scoring parts made me think that some one needs to now make a parody video of you. Do you recall the Julia Childs Saturday Night Live parody where she cuts whole limbs off? So very funny. I think some one could do the same with you, drill a hand, score a finger off, etc. I'd do it but I don't own a video camera.

Maybe I just had bad luck but I tried painting a pair of boots white and it was a disaster. The painting part went fine, however the paint job quickly cracked when I wore them and looked like crap. I was not able to touch them up at the point. If the boots are for a sandy then who cares but for a TK, it was waste. Not to mention you really need to make sure they fit properly under the shin armor.

It is very important to look at the width at the top of the boot. CAboots fit really well under the shin piece because it has a narrow neck AND it has a tall neck. A lot of other boots are either wider or not as tall as the CAboots and will not fit properly under the shin piece. I had this problem when I bought a boot which look just fine once painted white, however it would not stay under the shin piece when I walked because it was slightly shorter than the CAboot. I was perhaps an inch shorter but that made a world of difference. I ended up buy a pair of CABoots. Boy this sucks that they are stop making them!

Hey Mike, You wanna post a couple photos that are very close shots of the teeth. I would like to see how much you cut out and can't tell from the photos you've posted. Thanks.

A tip on identifying AP and TE2 helmets vs FX is that both AP and TE2 helmets are 3 piece kits where as FX is 5 pieces: AP: 1. face plate 2. Cap-back are one piece 3. ears FX 1. face plate 2. top cap 3. back 4. ears 5. vocoder FYI RTMod come assembled so you cannot get a raw kit.

I think adding a small heat sink to the amp would be a good idea, especially if you are driving two speakers in parallel as most of us are (much higher amp draw). Its hard to find one that small and so a small aluminum block could be used. Make sure you attach it with heat sink adhesive. I've also doubled up the amps. I now have two of these amps in serial. I run the output of the first amp into the input of the second. This helps boost the overall volume with out having to over drive the amps. They will shut down if you over drive them and get hot. The heat sink should help with that as well, though I have not yet added them. With the heat sinks I might be able to go back to just one amp. I'll keep ya posted. I really like this amp setup. Its cheap, each kit is $15 plus shipping, and very easy to build. I think the lack of volume is due to the tinny speakers in the hovi's. They just don't get that loud. Now when you test the helmet in a normal sized room with few people around it sounds fine, but in a large room full of people, volume becomes a problem.