TK6294

Shawn, Per your PM I did some playing around. It is an interesting idea and I have thought about Bluetooth before. I have already suggested to Aker to make an amp that has Bluetooth so that a Bluetooth mic can be used. I think that would be pretty cool to have... TK's tend to use two types of speakers. Either aerator integrated speakers or a voice amplifier in the chest or back armor. I do not want to start a debate on those since my preferences are obvious based on what I sell. The point is to add an amplified voice that can be heard by people around you. I found an app last night that does some of what you want. It is called "microphone" and cost $1 in the app store. What it does is allows you to use the iPhone mic to pick up your voice and then output to an external speaker. That speaker has to be hooked up via a cable. So this is what I did. I took a 3.5mm male to male patch cord, plugged one end into my iPhone and the other end into the one of my Aker voice amplifiers. Then I opened the microphone app on my phone. I was then able to talk into my iPhone mic and be heard through the amplifier. I had to have my mouth very close to my iPhone mic for it to work. Then the voice output was about 1/2 the normal level that you get with an Aker microphone. I tried to use my Bluetooth headset as the microphone and found that the iPhone either does the corded output or bluetooth output but does not do both at the same time. You could use one of my Memorex wireless headset kits with the iPhone if you wanted to eliminate the cable. I do think you are making it more complicated then it needs to be. I suggest that you use a normal sound system (Aker, Aker and IComm, Aker, IComm, and wireless, or other system). Then use the wired headset that came with your iPhone. You can buy some acustobuds from amazon that will put rubber tips on the iPhone headphones. That will help them stay in your ears. Then you can where the headphones inside your helmet, run your phone down to your armor, and leave the headphone remote accessible outside of your helmet. It shoudl land at your neck level. Since it is white it should blend in. Then you can access your controls so that Siri can help you. I have used this setup at a few cons and it works well. Siri is especially helpful since you can use gloves with an iPhone touch screen.

Here is what you seek... Aker voice amplifiers -----------

Contact me at my email address and I will send you a replacement Lithium battery for your Aker amp. It should last much much longer.

No problem guys. I am always open to new ideas and new products. Actually, I am working with Aker put out a amp that has built in wireless mic. I hope to have it out I'm the next 6 months.

I have some but i have not opened it yet to try. I bought it from thinkgeek.

"Each of those accessory cards still require a voice amplifier/Speaker system." I do not think i was wrong in what I stated. I have a RomFX. It still outputs to a separate "speaker system". Can be a chest/back speaker or hovi mic tips. I do agree on the need to upgrade though.

Danny, The Aker voice amplifiers (10watt MR1506) come with a microphone and are stand alone units. They only amplify your voice and they do that very well. Accessory cards like the hyperdyne, RomFX, and my own iComm add static burst after talking and have other features like VOX and PTT. Each of those acessory cards still require a voice amplifier/Speaker system. The Trik Toys voice amplifier is actually the radio shack mini sound amplifier ($15 2-watt) that has been removed the from protective plastic casing.

Aker has a couple of models like this but I have not started importing the ones with a remote. Look up MR2800, MR1700, AK38 on Amazon to see them in my merchant store. I have them if you want them. I told my Aker rep that the controls are not good enough, there is no LED screen to see what you are selecting, they are too big, and the SD ports and USB are not recessed so they stick out. Aker has a design coming soon that will address all of that. They are nice for non costume use but i would still rather hook up a mp3 player to one. That is why I don't advertise them to the Legion. If it is a "new Online" model i have tried them. "new online" also has a couple of other names they go but i don't know about this one. I was thinking of importing them because they were cheaper. After testing them i would not put my name behind them. Head to head with Aker, the batteries last half as long as the aker. Plus the wattage claim is not very good because the aker 10watt was a loud as a "new online" 15watt and had better clarity. Finally, the microphone was crappy. I think Aker needs to improve the durability of their mic though as well. There are a couple of other copy-cat brands out there from china. All that I have tested seem to be cheap imitations. Another observation is that the amplifier you have there is way too big to fit inside armor.

It is still going strong. I intend for these to be kept in stock just like my aker voice amplifier.

No problem Steve. I am curious to see if anyone has any solutions...

I use the balloon and e6000 option. But i do not use rubber gloves. I have started including balloons with each PTT. My kids don't like that because I won't share their water balloons, LOL...

I wanted to do a different helmet but settled for the FX style that came with the kit. What made up my mind was the paint matching. It would be very difficult to achieve the same color and look unless i spent a fortune on a professional paint job. The other option would have been to repaint the whole kit. Which I also did not want to do. I was able to get a close enough match on the shoes but it would not look right on the helmet. It is nice to have a roomy helmet for once, lol....

(since this is special ops i thought it best fit here) Hey Troops, I wanted to share pictures of my new costume that I just finished. It is one of the ultra rare Magma Troopers (part of special ops). I bought this kit off of ebay from a 501st member about a year ago. I got a great deal on it. I have been working on it for a long time. the kit had been hastily thrown together to make a Georgia bulldog trooper. The prior owner had riveted EVERYTHING together. To add to the problems, many of the rivets had caused cracks in the armor. So i had my work cut out for me. Red armor is tough to work with. it is translucent and turns orange when it is stressed. Fortunately any stressed or orange spots can be removed with a little heat from a heat gun. I started out by drilling out all of the rivets and removing all of the Georgia decals. I immediately had a challenge of patching all of the rivet holes. that is where i got a little bit creative. I took a hole punch and punched out red filler rounds from spare pieces. I then put one of the rounds into the hole. Next i used a soldering iron to melt the plastic round into the surrounding hole area. that did a good job of bonding things together but it made for an ugly surface. I then took sand paper from 300 grit to polishing grad of 20,000 grit and wet sanded out the spots until they were totally smooth. I had about 30 of these holes to fix. I then finished up with novis polish and finally car wax. The hole repairs are tough to spot but i can see every one of them since i have the most critical eye. Nobody notice them at the first troop unless i pointed them out. I am please with how they turned out. The rest of the armor was pretty straight forward. I took my time to make it very wearable. I also spent a great deal of time polishing out all the scratches from the previous owner. My boots are from TKboots. i used red high performance gloss enamel spray paint from rustuleum. the paint worked very well and is very flexible which was surprising. They are still in good shape after 4 hours of trooping and a very busy Dallas Comic Con. Here are some photos taken by a Jeff Brownlee, a local recruit. He did an awesome job. I know the Texas Flag Pauldrin is non-cannon but it really adds to the look and was extremely popular at the Comic Con.

That is true. The RomFX has an adjustment to the voice distortion that can go from minimal to extreme. When I had my RomFx i tried the different settings once to see what happened then returned to a near minimal setting. Then i never adjusted it again. The hyperdyne can do the same thing with the voice distortion. We added a minimal amount of voice distortion to the iComm to give a slight canned broadcast sound. We did not build in the ability to change the voice distortion in the iComm. They helped keep cost down and we thought the adjustment would not be used by enough troopers to justify the cost to add it. I

What about the DC15s? Same opinions?

Sorry for the delay... Aker Voice amps: http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=8256 IComm: http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=14832

I agree with tkrestonva. Hovi speakers work great in quiet environments but can be tough to be heard in crowded environments. They are limited by both the size and watts of the mini-speakers. They are also limited by feedback from being close to the microphone. The iComm must be connected to a powered amplifier in order to get it's main power. It is possible to take part the Aker amp and mount the parts inside your helmet. Then you could disconnect the Aker speaker and wire up the aerator speakers to the Aker circuit board. I have not done this myself but I think there is 1-2 people who have tried it. I do not know how it turned out. The nice thing about the AKER iComm system is that it is all plug and play and comes with all the cords you need. The helmet systems and other cards need some mod work before you can use them. Examples are a protective box, sealed battery box, and wiring to aerator speakers if needed.

It is looking good Sarah!

I bought an iPad 2 when they first came out. I have to say this iPad is pretty awesome. I used it as my work computer for a couple of days. It does not do everything a normal laptop would do but I am still learning. It does do more than my work laptop does right now because I don't have admin access to it anymore. That is very fustrating. Heck I can even print from home right now from my work laptop. I can from my iPad though. My parents spoke to me and the grand kids tonight using face time it was way cool... Now they just need to come out with some cool Star wars games for it. Can you imagine having SW rebellion or SW battlegrounds on it? Or maybe the dark forces series? -sent from my iPad

Will be posted on the forums for sale in a few days or so...

It is not easy to find a unused number that means something to you. I was blessed in that my wedding day was 6/2/1994. Since there is nothing more important to me then my Wife and kids, TK6294 was a natural pick. As an added benefit, i won't forget my wedding anniversary. At least I don't have a good excuse if do. When my wife joined she took TB6295 to be right next to me. I do wish sometimes that i would have used a more meaningfully forum name then my TK number. it is kind of hard to keep track of everyone if they only use numbers,

I have both a hyperdyne and a RomFX. Both are very good and you can't go wrong buying either. Each one has advantages and disadvantages. the hyperdyne is less expensive but tough to get. The RomFX has simpler settings but does a little less. The hyperdyne has PTT and bounty hunter voice changing but the setting can be confusing. Although, only the heavily modulated voice is noticeable IMHO. Both cards come relatively unprotected and need a box when placed inside armor. Both cards require an external battery pack that you will want to replace with a enclosed battery pack for safety. My advice, wait a few weeks. Rumors are there is a new static burst system coming out designed to work with the powered amps like the aker amps and will be more affordable. See what that system looks like and then make a decision.

Hmmm, I don't to say anything publicly that could be viewed as critical about someone's hard work. Someone's creation is like their child and nobody like to see their child put down in any way. It is all too easy to offend someone even if you mean well by the comments. But i will state some observations. I have tried all of the voice cards that i know that have been available in recent years (Trik, plector, TCI, hyperdyne, romFX) because a lot of aker amp buyers ask me for voice card reccomendations. They also ask about capability so i needed to try each in order to be able to answer. I have kept and used the RomFX and hyperdyne. I agree that it stinks that the trik toy "voice card" does not come with a protective box. the romFX and the hyperdyne don't come with a protective box either. Makes one nervous when you spend $140-$200 on a piece of electronics that you cram inside your armor and wear around a hot event. I put both my RomFX and Hyperdyne in protective boxes. I also wired in sealed battery boxes after seeing posting about the trooper that had the battery acid burns. The Trik Toy "voice card" i tested required the use of a powered microphone. I had to buy a separate microphone from Trik in order to use the card. The microphone was something that had been modified from a computer mic. It was not good mic in my opinion and i would have like to use something else but could not. The static burst on the trik toy card that i tested was not random and had the same burst each time. it was a little loud in proportion to the voice amplification. At least that is what i remember about it. I like the hyperdyne and RomFX burst more because of the variety and because i felt they sounded better. Again totally my opinion. In the end i did not want to use it (trik) because of the powered mic and my preference in static burst. I felt it was too expensive ($159 on trik website) for what it provided. Note, i also feel the hyperdyne and RomfX are too expensive for what they provide and for what i really want as a trooper. But they both work really well and it is expensive to design and build custom cards. My ideal of a perfect Stormtrooper static burst Card is this: VOX or PTT (voice activation or push to talk) At least 5 random static bursts (that sound authentic) Protective box. Must be thinner then 1 inch so it can fit in armor Simple or little adjustment needed (keep it simple) Contained reliable battery pack and connection Works with any type of Microphone, both wired and wireless Use a powered voice amp Most important---> less than $100 I think we will see a card that fits that description very soon.

Rumor is for a new voice card from a new supplier (not trik toys). I tried out the new trik toys card a few months ago. I promptly returned it for a refund. I think it cost about $130-$140. I am glad to hear the Aker is working for you though...

Depends on what you want to to do. If you want a true static burst after you talk then romfx or hyperdyne are the best investment. If you just want a amplified voice then I suggest an aker voice amp from me. You would need a good voice amp anyway with a hyperdyne and many romfx owners go for a powered amp along with it. The trik toy amp that I tested was just one of the $15 radio shack mini sound amplifiers that had been removed from the protective box that it comes with. The static burst comes from blowing in the mic. Rumor has it there is a new static burst card on the way that will do what the hyperdyne and romfx will do but for half the price.