themaninthesuitcase

Greetings Troopers, This year we're going to be focusing on some CRL clean up work. First up is the First Order Stormtroopers, of which we currently have 6 (Phasma: TFA, Phasma: TLJ, Pyre, TFA, TLJ//TROS, Executioner: TLJ) and all of them have the images for the "Back/Yoke" where they show the "rams horn" style rather than a more accurate full chest. Whilst this is not a clearance issue as it's not visible, it would be good to update these to be more accurate where possible. I have also heard of builders removing the accurate middle section to match the CRL images which makes them less accurate and generally makes life harder for the builder too. As both are acceptable, and kits may come with either we may leave both in the final update to try and reduce confusion. If you have any of the these listed suits and are able to supply a new set of images as below we will be able to update our CRL images. CRLs required: Captain Phasma : TFA Captain Phasma: TLJ Commander Pyre Stormtrooper: TFA Stormtrooper: TLJ/TROS Stormtrooper Executioner: TLJ

I'd argue that more suits where "lived in" than super clean but it's been a while since I watched R1.

Welcome to FISD!

Welcome to the FISD. In the links above make sure you read the thread on who to avoid when buying your amour. This can save you a lot of heart ache later.

Hi, Some are okay but some are probably a bit too far off angle wise. If you have a look at this CRL which is essentially the same armour you should get a good idea of the framing and angles we need. https://databank.501st.com/databank/Costuming:TK_rogue_one It also helps if you can use a contrasting background which makes it easier to cut the parts out. Ideally this would be a blue or green screen but essentially anything that contrasts well to the armour will help.

Welcome to the FISD!

Looks like a great build. I look forward to the DOs comments. The CRL text was written prior to the Enoch CRL which has had a bit more work since. Whilst I doubt much will change in a substantial way I do want to go over this CRL and update some of the wording to be more consistent with Enoch.

Welcome to the FISD Peter!

Thank you to all of you. Even a small donation makes a difference and means we can keep this place running.

An iPhone speaker? In a blaster? Madness surely? No, and you can blame model train people. I just stole it from them. To an extent a speaker is a speaker is a speaker. There's a few things you need to know about. One is the impedance measured in ohms (Ω) and the other one is wattage. When you drive the speaker most drivers will state what impedance they need, and how many watts they put out. So something like "4-8Ω 3W", which is what's on the driver I am using. You'll also find that most of these will put out more power, and so be louder, at the lower impedance so you want to shoot for 4 if you can. For this one it's 3W at 4ohms and only 1.8 at 8ohms. So with that in mind on to the speaker. I am using a speaker for an iPhone 8 plus, but anything in the iPhone 5-8 range is all similar in size for a give phone class (e.g. normal vs the larger plus models). These came from AliExpress and are quite affordable, I got a 5 pack for £2.93 (with free postage as I made my order over £8 to qualify for choice). I went with the bigger speaker as I have room, and in general bigger is better with speakers. If space is limited get a non-plus speaker and it will be around half the size but volume will probably suffer. The specs on these online are sparse so first job is to work out what impedance these are. Using a multi meter over the 2 contacts (not photos sorry those pins are tiny and needs both hands) and I got about 8.7 ohms. This is DC resistance, which isn't the same as impedance but close enough. 8 ohm speakers. We don't know what wattage they will take but the train people seem to drive them hard, but if yours blows up then sorry no warrantee here. But we want 4ohms for maximum loud from our pew pew so how do we do that. We use 2 speakers, and wire them in parallel. Thanks to physics 2 speakers (resistors) in parallel make a smaller one. I won't cover the maths but simply if you have 2 of the same resistance in parallel you halve the resistance. So our 8 ohm speakers will be one 4 ohm one once wired up. Now on how to do it. If you've got a different speaker, you're on your own but basically join both of + sides together and both of the - sides together. None of of this is marked, so just join them "the same" on each. If you don't it will work but the speakers will be backwards to each other and sound awful and weak (they will be out of phase). This is how I did it: First the speakers have a few bits of plastic sticking out so those where trimmed with a pair of flush cutters. This isn't 100% needed but makes the package tidier. In order to parallel the speakers I decided to "piggy back them". So started by picking one speaker and bending out the contacts so they stuck straight out and so would fit over the side of the lower speaker. I then stacked the speakers. Due to the shape I sandwiched in a bit of 1.5mm HIPS I had lying around to pack out the air gap. With them carefully positioned so that the bent leg touched the unbent leg on the lower speaker, I applied a tiny bit of flux from a flux pen and tack soldered one side, then the same on the other side. Now things where stable I applied a little more solder to make the joint more solid. Care is needed here, these are small pins and you also don't want to cook the speaker by applying too much heat for too long. To attach the leads I pre soldered (aka tinned) both the wire and the connections again with some flux. This means the join is just a case of holding the wire in place and re-heating which makes the whole process far easier, but was still fiddly. I did add a touch more solder but this is probably unnecessary. At this point it's probably wise to test things. Hook it up make sure it works and sounds good. All okay, then you can move on. If not check things like you haven't created a short or melted the speaker by checking the resistance across the speaker if you have a meter, you're looking for something like 4-5 ohms of DC resistance. Things work but are fragile so lets try add some strength. First grab som 2-3mm heat shrink about 2-3cm long and slide it over the leads and slide it up close as you can whilst still being gentle. Ideally use a heat gun to shrink this in a more controlled manor than a lighter. Next we want to glue things in place to further strengthen things. You can use hot glue if you want, but this can be messy so I went with 8 year old E6000 as I had some left and seemed perfect for the job. This looks messy but the E6000 self levelled quickly and looked a lot cleaner. We want to glue the contacts, and also the wire it's self so hopefully there will be no strain on the contacts. Really you should now wait 12 hours or so for the glue to go off, but I am lazy and wanted it done. The final step in adding strength is more heat shrink. I want to say this was in the region of 13mm dia but may have been more like 15mm. I just grabbed some the right size from my stash. Cut a bit the right length to cover the whole assembly and shrink down again. And you're all done. Here is a comparison vs the typical 28mm speaker people generally use in blasters and lightsabres. It's a a little bigger but I think the shape means it will fit inside a blaster a bit easier and be less awkward to mount. It also sounds significantly nicer.

This is the sort of thing we love on the forum. You've clearly spent a good amount of time gathering resources and documenting the build, having it on the forum makes it available to anyone who's working on a build.

LMO have now ratified, so have sent them an email for a go/no go on this one.

Looks fantastic. That chrome is such a different look! Or at least it was until that pesky mando showed up.

Since you mention it we do actually have a Discord. It's not the busiest place in the world but there's enough people there to be useful if you want it. As for what you build, I'd always say build what you want to wear. There's no point buying an IOC costume to join if that's not what you want. We're all here to help you, it's not real time but we can help. Many of use built with only these forums for help, some who've been around a bit basically built off of the CRL which I can't imagine being a fun task. Depending on what you buy, and we can help there, some one will have built it before. Even then all of the suits are basically the same from a construction point of view so other than a few idiosyncrasy's any build thread will give you a good idea on what to expect. Also don't feel you need to rush. Rushing leads to suffering.

Yeah, would be good if I could just pay in dollars as I am pretty sure my bank gives me a better rate!

Gee I wonder why the MG34 is getting so many votes

Greetings troopers, It's that time of year where we need to pay our bills. As last year we moved away from the temporary legion hosting and on to our own systems we have an increase in costs to cover. As a stretch goal we have also included a proper backup solution into the costs. Currently this is managed manually and adhoc so a proper solution would be a great addition. The breakdown of costs are as follows: Hosting - $28.80 monthly after taxes Hosting - Backups - $5.76 monthly after taxes (stretch goal) Email - Send Grid - $19.95 monthly after taxes Invision Licence - $75 annual Members owed from previous term - $22.26 We would like cover the next 14 months of costs if possible. This means next years admin team are not thrown in with suddenly having to run a fundraiser. The idea will be from then onwards it will be 12 months at a time. This brings our fundraising goal to $762.90 for the 14 months $865.39 for the 14 months. (value corrected 05 June 2025) We'd like to ask for a $5 donation from members, but any value no matter how small will be appreciated. Please send your donation via PayPal friends and family to [removed] please make sure you add a note saying FISD Forum 2025. All members who donate will also have the 2025 supporter banner added to their profile, as with the earlier email costs fundraiser.

I was speaking to someone from Lucasfilm on Friday, as you do. She was saying they struggle to get people who fit those suits and basically have to cast male models. If you look at all of them they are bulging out of the top of the thigh. The First order stuff is more human shaped so less of an issue.

@Gklair08 This change has been provisionally approved by LMO. CRL will be updated once possible but this is the proposed changes: Forearm Armor From: Special unit details in red shall be present in the form of two vertical stripes, running the length of the forearm. One in the front and one in the back (cover strip area). To: Special unit details in red shall be present in the form of three vertical stripes, running the length of the forearm. One in the front and one in the back (cover strip area), and one between the cover strips on the smooth side of the forearm. Upper Arm Armor From: Special unit details in red shall be present in the form of two vertical stripes, running the length of the bicep. One in the front and one in the back (cover strip area). To: Special unit details in red shall be present in the form of two vertical stripes, running the length of the bicep. One in the front and one in the back (cover strip area). There is a red band around the top of the inner side of the bicep. Please can you provide a new image of the bicep once completed and we can update that as well.

Oh I know they are the same, more it was the miss-match between the title TROS vs the body TLJ.

You are correct that is not based on the original moulds. The easiest to spot errors are the bottom curve of the chest plate and the fact it's using a plastic wrap around belt. Neither is accurate at all. RS own a screen used suit and all their kits are based on that. Denuo Novo took over from a previous vendor Anovos, and as far as I am aware this is the same product. So far Denuo Novo have proven reliable and I had a good experience with their customer service team. Accuracy wise it's pretty good. From what we were told it was scanned from a screen used suit but then cleaned up a little to remove some of the "warts and all". The biggest down side is that some parts a shade on the thin side and replacement parts seem to be patchy on availability and even then you have to buy assemblies. What ever option you go for I would suggest avoiding the "ready to wear" options. A big part of a storm trooper is how well it fits you and most of that is done during the build, and adjustments are a lot harder with the glues they will use.

Based on this: I've added to level 3 that the shoulder bell > shoulder strap strap should be dark burgundy similar to the under suit. Good spot by @gmrhodes13

Unless you are already on the order books, he's not taking any new orders. Once the backlog is clear there will be no more tramps.

The Prop store have a TROS helmet up for auction (though weirdly the text mentions TLJ?) https://propstoreauction.com/lot-details/index/catalog/449/lot/157242?url=%2Fauctions%2Fcatalog%2Fid%2F449%3Fpage%3D4%26items%3D100 The interior image of the padding is interesting.

https://www.instagram.com/bigfreds_customs/ https://www.facebook.com/bigfredscustoms/ This is their instagram and facebook, maybe try asking direct?