revlimiter

Looking very good! I honestly don't personally see anything that would hinder basic approval, though I'm still not the keenest eye or most knowledgeable. Your torso sides are PHENOMENAL. Perfect alignment. Belt is looking good too, though it could be ever so slightly higher. And your bucket looks great! Your thighs seem very low. You could tighten your thigh garters (hopefully yours are adjusable?) and raise them up closer to the cod piece. It'll give a better look and a lot better movement. Knees don't bend too well with the thighs way down there. Your biceps also seem rather low. Are they attached to your shoulder bells? I use a 3 strap system between those pieces as well as the screen-accurate elastic and J-hook. It keeps them high and tight together. Hope that gives a few tips. But really, I think you'll be fine for Basic.

I'm also a day late. Nice job @CountCunning Keep going with that weight loss!!! Initial sharp losses are to be expected. Newbie Gainz as they say. I've had similar early success and have had a lot of muscle mass return to my small frame. Expect the losses to slow as your body gets more used to the workouts and more efficient at doing what you're asking of it. I'm now at 15 days of working out. I've had a rest day here and there, including yesterday. But that's okay. Gotta have a rest day here and there. I've been going on a Heavy / cardio / heavy / cardio / heavy / rest schedule. I was supposed to have a heavy day yesterday, but had a rest day by accident due to holiday stuff. Today I woke up just craving the workout. I haven't felt that in sooo long. It felt good. And now, after having worked out, I would happily do more. I feel energized! Crohn's has subsided and seems in remission again. I'm eating bland stuff (thankfully protein shakes agree with me and keep me energized) but it's still nice to feel well. I trooped in the desert for nearly 3 hours on Sunday evening and didn't get tired. I was surprised we'd been out that long when I looked at the time. I even added a new kettlebell to the herd. More weight was needed.

Nice work Cam and James!!!

Slopping the paint on there and then carefully cleaning up the edges with a toothpick covered in a bit of thinner-soaked paper towel was my method. It worked well enough. For very tiny fixes, I'd just dip the toothpick directly in the thinner and worry away the offending paint edge that way. That worked great on the frown.

Though I haven't trooped that long, I'm now on my third iCOMM battery. Since they're hard to get, hard to change, and a general bummer of a power source, I decided to change it out using Andrew's excellent tutorial. There won't be any new information or techiques in this post. I'm copying exactly. This post is mostly for me so I can remember what I did in the future. My iCOMM board complete with a nearly-new TL-2450 battery. Note that it shows polarity. The center post is positive and the outer (right side in this view) post is negative. My new battery showing 3.537 volts. My dead battery showed 3.63 volts before I tossed it. These things don't vary in voltage very much. It's just the lost mAh. I drilled a couple tiny holes in the back case and ran the wires through. Since my iCOMM was already covered in loop velcro, I stuck some hook velcro to the battery holder for attachment. I've also removed the stock battery. Probably needless to say, but the shot above doesn't show that. It just pulls out of the board, even though it appears soldered in place at first glance. I used the same 3.6V battery that @Sly11 did on his mod. Bought it directly from UltraFire for about $23 shipped per pair. I have a spare to put in my helmet bag in case of emergency power failure... which is what prompted this mod. It's a bummer to do a troop without the fancy speakers. I could have wired around it on my last power failure, but would have needed to shift all my padding around. With this rechargeable, replaceable battery I'll never have that problem again. 4.1V with a fully charged battery. Popular belief is that the iCOMM is very picky about voltage and really likes to have the 3.6V power source, but Andrew and others have had this mod working for many years. That track record made me feel confident in doing this to my own unit. Installed back in my bucket. Hardly any extra space is taken up at all, and it's still comfy sitting just above my right headphone pad. I downloaded a free decibel measuring app (Sound Meter on Google Play) to see if there was much or any change in volume in a before and after. In my own experience, the iCOMM amplification decreases quite a bit as the battery ages. It's pretty quiet before it starts the click of death indicating it needs a new one again. Anyways, having some test data seemed important. The app also allowed pausing between sample sessions to compare data on the screen. Before: I saw between 53 and 70 dB while saying my test phrase (kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty). After: I saw between 55 and 73 dB while saying the same phrase. I didn't expect much of an increase in volume and was hoping to not see a decrease (or magic smoke come out) after the mod. A tiny increase is very welcome. Fingers crossed that this is my final iCOMM battery change and case opening. Just a recharge once in a while to keep the battery topped up should be enough.

I finished my first full week of workouts yesterday... with a rest day. But that's okay, rest days count too. And then I started the new week today with a big workout. It felt good. 1 week down. Gotta keep advancing.

I've got another shot of it! It's a little fuzzy, but you can see both rail greeblies and the back one is in a little better focus. It doesn't look to be TOO thick.

Is it a secret patch run? Or can anyone participate? Got a link?

I just read the whole thread. WOW. Fantastic build. Will be following with interest! I have this irrational desire to build an R1TK. My ANH is fantastic, centurion'd, and fully upgraded. But that R1 sleekness...

My last job had a fantastic gym attached to it. Almost always empty. It's where I started working out after my Crohn's diagnosis. To keep myself on track and motivated, I used an app called FitNotes. It's free and has auto backup to your gmail account. You can enter custom exercises and track things, even light stuff like PT movements or walks. I continued to use it when I quit that job and joined a public gym, then stopped when I got into crossfit classes. No need to log crossfit since the workout is on the board everyday. Anyways, I re-downloaded it, logged in, and opened it. All my workouts and saved custom exercises were in there with my last logged workout being in 2018. I've since logged 3 more. http://www.fitnotesapp.com/ No affiliation, just a user for the past many years over about 4 phones. I was beyond pleased that the app still existed and worked.

Dang. Sorry to read that you need this too James. However, I'm very glad there's a handful of us to participate and keep each other going! I made up something kinda quick to commemorate it. What do you think brothers? Weekly updates? @Order and Justice @jsilvius

This meant a lot. Thank you. I had a really good workout yesterday afternoon and another this morning. 4 days in a row. Gotta keep advancing!

Just the silicone hand armor. I was calling it the "white plate. " The plastic hand plates should get elastic loops installed with E6000 and worn with pilot's gloves. That's what I do with mine on every troop. Never trooped with the rubber gloves... The silicone plates get glued down.

This is a timely thread bump. I didn't realize we had something like this. So... I've got Crohn's disease. Currently I'm untreated with no meds. I've been diagnosed for over 14 years and have gone from a lot of drugs and immunosupressives to a few to none. Diet and obsessive exercise had me in complete remission. I've had maybe 3 flare ups in the 14 years and was never hospitalized beyond my original episode... wherein I almost died. COVID lock down has been extremely unkind. I *loved* going to the gym. I'm a social exerciser. I don't enjoy working out on my own and have a hard time motivating myself to do it. But if others are around, perhaps in a gym environment, I do well. If I'm in a class with others doing the daily workout board (WOD) I thrive. I haven't worked out much in the past 2.5 years since lockdown. I built a decent home gym in an unused room and have all the equipment I need... just no motivation to do it. How lame is that? A lovely home gym with a rack, plates, weights, and all I need yet it just sits. And because of Crohn's, I cannot exercise in a gym. At least currently while COVID is still rampant. I'm fully immunized, but it doesn't matter a whole lot in this condition. I started building my armor when I was working out all the time. I did the forearms and biceps back in 2019. They were TIGHT. And when I took my centurion photos in 2021, they were quite loose. Arguably, they needed (and still need) to be sized down. And I was still in "good shape" when I took these pix. Healthy without symptoms. I'm not in good shape now. Crohn's has been rearing it's ugly head and my health is quite poor. I likely need meds again, or I need to actually work out, or both. I've lost about 30 lbs of muscle. I can't eat much to help maintain my weight. I'm in danger of not being able to troop and being in the hospital again. So I need this Trooper Fit Club. Or something. Anything. A kick in the posterior armor. I've done small workouts the past 2 days. I just need to keep doing things. Keep moving. Keep lifting things. I need to do something today. It's so hard to find the motivation.

Really, that Plastic Bonding System worked amazingly. I spent a long while lining up the silicone on my glove where I wanted it, making fists and vulcan salutes and all sorts of things till I was sure it was in both a correct and natural fitting spot. I marked the edges of the white plate with a pencil on the gloves. And then I roughed up the back of the glove very slightly with some fine sandpaper. Probably around 400 grit. I made sure the silicone was very very clean as it had picked up some junk and crap over the many fittings. I also cleaned extra sanded rubber off the back of the glove. Then I followed the directions with the plastic bonder. I did most of the center area with the activator on both pieces of material, let it dry, and then applied the glue. Then I applied a paper towel to the top and a heavy book on top of that and let it sit a day. The next day I inspected and saw what stuck and what didn't. I rolled the glove to the next position, lifted, primered, and re-glued. Then another day of pressure. I think it took about 4 days of gluing to get every piece glued down. But they're VERY glued down. I probably shouldn't admit this, but I use my centurion gloves to protect my hands when boiling armor... and I've boiled quite a few pieces since installing those silicone plates with the plastic bonder. Nothing has come loose, even with repeated contact with boiling water and steam.

Many years later thread bump! Is the rechargable 3.6v battery still holding up @Sly11 ? I'm on my third iComm battery and am considering this mod very seriously. I have one more spare of the tiny one, but ugh. I'd love to fix it one final time and never crack that case again.

https://www.loctiteproducts.com/en/products/fix/super-glue/loctite_plasticsbondingsystem.html This is what I used and I think it's what you're after. I picked mine up at the local Ace Hardware. The silicone and rubber are extremely bonded on my own gloves.

Congratulations Matt! Welcome to EIB!!

Definitely positive criticism and something I'd noticed. I had the banana bend... hmm, at some point. And I don't think I took a photo of it. It was created naturally by putting those M19 bolts in the opposite order I have them now. The large/long bolt needed to move to the back, I think. That bolt placement sucked the front end down and gave it the rail a proper bow out.

Okay. Here's my first attempt at figuring out what's going on with these scraggly wires. I don't think I quite have it right, but think I'm on the right track. I tried a few things to get it even this far. I first thought it may be a braided wire. A roll of 1/8" braided wire was something like $30, so I braided up some of my own by hand and was instantly happy I didn't spend that money. The braiding was far too wide and large. The original blaster behind Leah definitely just had some fraying on the end, making it poof out. The original blaster also has a wire helping secure the power cylinders around the clip receiver. I don't have that on mine and don't intend to replicate that detail, but it's pretty interesting and only something I noticed when mine was in hand and I noticed that a "step" was missing behind that receiver. Same thin wire they used to hold the counter in place. Also also, the gun behind Leah is missing the right hand far bottom T-track. That's the only way that light would show through the bottom row from this angle - if that T-track wasn't there. But I digress. Back to the wires. Mine isn't quite right compared to the screen one. It's too long, making the wire go down and across in a rather square shape instead of down at a diagonal angle. But I think this is what was going on - black tape or something similar holding the wire in place on the counter. My theory is that the wires got PAINTED black just like the rest of the blaster. I don't think it was insulated wire due to the fraying you can see in the screen capture. The foreground wire takes an immediate U turn coming out of the counter and the goes toward the power cylinder. The wires seem to go straight underneath the power cylinder and connect near the resistors. Connecting wires to the backs of the power cylinder centers gave a different look than what was present in that original screen capture. Mine are just floating in place so I can move them all about and reposition as I notice new things. The original was apparently a functional gun shooting blanks, so the clip release button would have needed to function. And in order to get to that clip release, the wires need to move out of the way. In the act of pressing that clip release, moving the wires out of the way exactly as seen in the screen capture is the most natural way to do it. The one nearest the barrel gets a bit closer to the barrel and tends to go straight down. The other wire in the foreground gets shoved and does this U turn thing to give thumb room for the prop person to change the clip. And here it is from behind. Not such a strange routing due to the need to press that release button downward. I need to fiddle with this more and think about it more, but I feel like I'm nearly there.

It may not sound like it, but removing the padding from the very top of your bucket and beefing up the padding on the sides makes for the maximum amount of comfort and sight ability. I think I could do a handstand and not have my bucket fall off or move with how I have the padding around the base of my neck and ears. No chin strap required. I also don't have the dexterity to mess with a chin strap once my arms and gloves are on.

My post is classified.

On the shot showing the right ear and the front frown shot, it looks like two of the larger teeth have paint going into the lower gum. It's very subtle but maybe worth cleaning up. The left ear shot doesn't seem to have any teeth with that problem. Fantastic work on the vocoder paint. I have the same bucket and really had to guess at my paint. The pull on my own was very faint there. Yours looks similar in terms of pull definition. Also, nice Mr No Stripes.

I too noticed quite a few ANH-TK in episode 5. Cloth belts, no raised TD-holding panel in the mid back, no side stripe. Very cool. Someone spill some beans!

I use the full face version of that mask in my daily job and am very familiar with it. You definitely do NOT want any sort of wire going into or through the mask. The wire could create a breech in your protection. The idea of having a bluetooth mic in the mouth area is also not very appealing to me. I get in and out of that mask as quickly as possible and dinkling with bluetooth pairing, arguing with something right by my lips, and even just struggling with a micro on-off switch would be annoying. It's very tight in that mouth area, at least for me. The mask also tends to smoosh your lips together a bit which would distort your speech even with the mic. Not that you couldn't get good at turning things on and working out bugs. I mean, I have 4 switches in my stormtrooper bucket alone. No issues for me getting things all powered up and ready to troop. But it's a lot easier to stick a hand into the helmet than slide a finger deep into the mouth recess of that respirator. My humble suggestion: a throat mic plugged into an Aker style amp. I know you suggested some extra fat around the throat might be an issue, but I do not believe that could be the case. The mic just wants to pick up vibrations next to the skin. As long as you have nothing between the skin and the mic, there shouldn't be any issue. Many overweight gamers use these daily with no problems. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0819TNF5L My daughter has one of these in her Jawa kit connected to a sound glove. It works extremely well connected to a mic also. Cheap and good are a hard combo to beat. Pair that with a good-review throat mic and you should be golden. Hope this helps.