KMan's Anovos TK Adventure Build

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

The mattress topper is a good idea. I'm going to have to get a better bin, mines fine for short trips but I've got a long walk this weekend so have had to bodge up a trolly for it.

[Airborne Trooper[501st]]

Nice! I have the smaller husky and I lined mine with a SW fleece 

[kman[TK]]

The mattress topper is a good idea. I'm going to have to get a better bin, mines fine for short trips but I've got a long walk this weekend so have had to bodge up a trolly for it.

I doubt the Husky box is available in the UK (and it would be a bear to wrestle with in close quarters or public transit), but I was pretty darned pleased how well that twin foam fit it. No trimming at all on the sides and bottom, which is nice because that gives it a seamless install there, so nothing small can be wedged into a corner or work it way between layers. (at least on the "U" from the front to the back)

 

I wish I could take credit for the idea!

Edited June 14, 2016 by kman

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

There's a Stanley one but it's £88 ($128+- exchange changes).

[Sentry71[TK]]

Nice! I have the smaller husky and I lined mine with a SW fleece 

 

I have the smaller bin as well, and I am intending to do the same paint scheme on the outside.

 

Well done!

[kman[TK]]

And now, my helmet bag is something to be relatively pleased with, too.

 

[BARCatMe[TK]]

That's pretty much it! Although I'm trying to find a good inexpensive source for acrylic mirror that I can attach securely into the underside of the lid. Should be handy while suiting up. I forget who came up with that idea, but I like it.

I just installed one that I found on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01CC4T6Y2/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmr0_1?qid=1466305584&sr=8-1-fkmr0π=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=Source+One+Acrylic+Safety+Mirror+Sheet+Great+for+Classroom+Cam

 

I went with the 11x17" and it fits well.

 

 

Open the Blast Door!

[kman[TK]]

I just installed one that I found on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01CC4T6Y2/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmr0_1?qid=1466305584&sr=8-1-fkmr0π=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=Source+One+Acrylic+Safety+Mirror+Sheet+Great+for+Classroom+Cam

 

I went with the 11x17" and it fits well.

Nice! I wish I had seen that one. I saw the listing in the search results, but only the smaller one was shown in the list, with no indication of other sizes available.

 

I ordered a 12x24" one here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AVEG2RY/

 

No prime shipping, so it's going to take a couple of weeks to arrive (grr) but at least it's a little bigger. I wish I should have found something 14" wide, but so be it. Glass would have been easy, but I was terrified at the idea of opening a case and finding broken glass covering my armor (and my soft goods are usually on top!)

[kman[TK]]

So, after kinda burning out on armor work for a bit after going for EIB, and getting distracted by other fun things (like my armor box, and 3D printers, whee!!!), I realized I have a troop coming up this weekend. It's my first troop, to date, that has not been indoors or outdoors in the evening, such that I haven't had to worry about excessive heat messing with my Anovos strapping yet.

 

That lucky streak ends this weekend, so back to it.

 

But first I printed some power cells with my 3D printer. I used themaninthesuitcase's models. These are the first two fullsize test prints, in red so it was easy to see how it was working:

 

 

Here's the printer going, just for fun:

 

 

This was for a Rubies blaster (the Rebels-style one, you can see part of it behind the printer in the pic above), which is about 10% smaller than a full size one (my Hyperfirm, for instance), and sure enough, after trying a couple of sizes, the 90% scaled print looks best.

 

 

Tonight I sanded it a bit (really hard to sand things this small and detailed!) and sprayed a couple coats of paint on it. At some point I may add wires and screw tips to make it more accurate, but now at least my backup blaster is a bit nicer.

 

Ok, back to armor. I got out my 2" white elastic and actually started to mess with this. I decided I wanted to reinforce the elastic with some 2" white webbing, in spots, and use the white webbing for snap plates in the shoulders, as well.

 

First I cut 1" sections from the 2" nylon webbing, since I'll be using that for snap plates. I'm using Ukswrath's method of shoulder straps, modified with snaps. So I folded the ends over a strip of webbing, and sewed a line across to hold it all together. This gives me a nice thick sandwich to mount the snap into, and also gives a lot of extra strength to the mounting point where it will attach and detach a lot, and won't stretch out of shape around the snap. So the strips were sewn into folded over ends. I sized the elastic to copy the length I had been using for the Anovos webbing, less a little bit so the elastic can stretch a tad without being too long.

 

 

Standard double snap plates would go into the other strips of 2" white webbing, and get E6000'd onto the chest and back straps.

 

 

First up, I need this all to line up nicely, so I decided to punch them all at once, using the hot nail technique. I doubled everything over into a nice thick sandwich and laid snaps where I wanted them to go, and dotted the open center with a sharpie to mark the hole location.

 

Then I heated the nail red hot, and stuck it through all the sandwiched layers in one push, quickly taking them all apart so they didn't fuse together badly. (some needed a little extra help with the hot nail where they stuck, no biggie since it'll all be under the snap anyway)

 

Once the pieces were all separated and cooled, I re-sandwiched it all, and fed the now-cool nail back through the new hole through all the layers to make sure it's all exactly where it was. Then reheated the nail, and punched the other side.

 

Sorry, no pics of that whole process (I wish I had!) but here are the finished elastic straps and some of the mounted snap plates (being test fit in the strap)

 

 

I tore the Anovos Velcro out the shoulder (that was disturbingly easy!) and E6000'd the new snap plates in place:

 

 

The usual. Tape the gluey plates in place so they can't shift overnight, and clamp the heck out of them. The backplate straps and shoulder fronts are both curing overnight, so I'll be able to test fit this tomorrow evening.

 

 

Once I know this is all good, next up is the strap to connect to the shoulder bells either to the new strap, or to the chest plate, depending on what all is needed.

 

I'll also do the arms tomorrow. I like the existing Anovos elastic, so I'll probably just cut off the attached Velcro and E6000 the forearms and biceps together, unless I decide to do snaps so they're separable.

 

Then I'll have to decide if the back pieces are good enough with the Velcro for now, or if they all need to be converted to snaps as well, in fear of the heat. Perhaps just the butt plate, since the top backplate is now well secured to the shoulders, and the kidney plate already has solid snap systems connecting the sides to the ab plate, making the velcro connections among those pieces somewhat redundant.

 

I managed to break one of my fan power switches in my bucket, on my last troop, so I'll have to do something about that, too, before this weekend, or live with only one fan. Tick tock...

[kman[TK]]

Clamps came off last night and the new snap plates are in position:

 

 

The new Centurion-level white elastic straps appear to be working well:

 

 

Here they are bridging the two pieces:

 

 

Very comfortable, as well!

 

Next up is the shoulder caps.  (I can't really use the term "shoulder bells" anymore because that's just not correct armor terminology)  I wrestled with various options for this, but in the end, I'm following Ukswrath's methods quite closely for this part.  I used the Anovos elastic, as he did, separating it from the nylon straps and cutting off the Velcro bit at the end.  Folded over the end where the snap will go and sewed it down.

 

 

I had initially thought to use snaps to connect the new straps, but I'm getting a little low on them, and realized I really only need to be able to disconnect one end anyway, so I decided to glue them in, just like Ukswrath did.

 

 

Lacking any solid reference, since I was using the same materials, I decided to copy his measurements as well.  Since this is E6000, once I sew on the snaps and try this on, if it's really off, it shouldn't be too tough to peel the new strap off and reposition as needed.

 

 

I used some scrap and the usual magnets to hold the straps in place while the E6000 cures.

 

Since I was working on the shoulder caps anyway, I tore out the Anovos rigging for the strap that loops around the bicep, as well.  Again, I cut off the Velcro and applied the glue directly to the straps.  Since I've been wearing the armor for a bit now, I decided to make them just a little bit tighter than they had been with the Velcro, so they'll be attached about 1/4" more in on each side.

 

 

I used clamps and some scrap strips of ABS to hold the strap firmly to the shoulders while the E6000 cures.

 

 

That's it until the glue dries!  I'll pick up the pop snaps I need tonight for the shoulder cap to shoulder strap connection, hand sew those onto the elastic, and it should be ready to wear again.

 

Oh, one last thing, as long as I was working on Centurion modifications:  The elastic retention loops for the shoulders.  Cut two 6" strips, tie a knot, slip it on.  Done and done!

 

 

As far as actual modifications, I think the only thing I have left to do for Centurion is get to work with some ABS paste on the extra seam from my side shims.  Oh, and I need to glue my latex hand plates onto the rubber gloves.

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Looking good Kalani 

[kman[TK]]

Things are progressing nicely.

 

I took some time last evening, while the E6000 finished the balance of it's 24 hours, to attack some of the return edges that have been annoying me a bit, mostly the top sharp bits on the front and back of the thighs, plus a little in the bicep and forearms.  I didn't really remove any of the exterior armor, just smoothed the inside return edges a bit.  I'll take some photos at some point.

 

Once I hit the 24 hour mark, I pulled off the magnets, clamps, and scrap plates, and here are the new shoulder caps.  The only remaining Anovos Velcro is the connection from the cap to the biceps, down the outside, which frankly I've only used once since it doesn't really seem to be needed. (for me, at least)

 

 

Last, I started sewing in buttons.  I use the Dritz Size 10 sew-on snaps recommended in Ukswrath's build, but in black instead of nickel.  I would have used nickel, but they were sold out, and the black should work just as well, since it's all on top of a black undersuit and can't be seen anyway.

 

Anyway, one part goes on the little tab of elastic on top of the shoulder caps:

 

 

And the other half gets sewn into the shoulder straps.  To find the correct position, I put the main clamshell armor on so I could see where the shoulder straps actually lay across my shoulders.  Then I put the snaps mostly centered, but cheated slightly to the front, to help keep them closed in tight.  If it turns out I'm wrong about this placement, it shouldn't be a huge issue to snip the threads and re-sew the snaps in a slightly different position on the white elastic shoulder straps.

 

Here are the shoulder strap buttons, sewn in. (mostly)  I'll probably trim that little extra (and re-melt to seal the ends) on the one side, but otherwise we're in good shape with this last work.

 

 

Next up, additional work on the helmet electronics.  Gotta rebuild that switch before tomorrow's troop!  I guess it's going to be a late night, since I have dinner and movie planned for this evening...

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Looks good Kalani, when placing the female snaps ensure the bell will be positioned directly next to the shoulder straps once the armor is installed. Our #1 correction suggestion at L2 & L3 is excessive should bell gaps. Unfortunately you wont' know what that gap is until you install the upper portion of the armor and arms. The forearms tug on the biceps and the biceps the bells. This is when you realize if calculations are correct. The offset of the female snap is for two reasons, screen accuracy and the shoulder bell elastic will stretch when the armor is installed.

 

Keep up the great work.

[kman[TK]]

Looks good Kalani, when placing the female snaps ensure the bell will be positioned directly next to the shoulder straps once the armor is installed. Our #1 correction suggestion at L2 & L3 is excessive should bell gaps. Unfortunately you wont' know what that gap is until you install the upper portion of the armor and arms. The forearms tug on the biceps and the biceps the bells. This is when you realize if calculations are correct. The offset of the female snap is for two reasons, screen accuracy and the shoulder bell elastic will stretch when the armor is installed.

 

Keep up the great work.

 

Thanks!  I tried on the full clamshell last night, and attached the shoulder caps, and everything seemed to be in place.  I didn't put the rest of the arms on, that's true, but the spacing on top at least seemed to be correct.  I guess I'll find out for sure when I put it all on for tomorrow's troop!  As I mentioned, I often don't even bother connecting the shoulder caps to the biceps, so there should be no pulling.  They stay in place without a need for that extra strap so I rarely use it.

 

Is there a good way to keep the shoulder caps rotated forward?  That's the #1 thing that seems to drift when you're active in the armor (when it's a tight fit, at least, like it is for me).  It's pretty easy to have an assistant adjust things for a photo, but it's a lot harder to keep them perfectly in place when you're active and don't have someone continuously adjusting things for you.  I've debated adding a supplemental strap across the front (essentially at the front edge of your shoulder socket, horizontally across), but it occurred to me that it might make your arms difficult to raise, so I tabled the idea until I had more time to think on it.

Edited June 24, 2016 by kman

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Is there a good way to keep the shoulder caps rotated forward?  That's the #1 thing that seems to drift when you're active in the armor (when it's a tight fit, at least, like it is for me).  It's pretty easy to have an assistant adjust things for a photo, but it's a lot harder to keep them perfectly in place when you're active and don't have someone continuously adjusting things for you.  I've debated adding a supplemental strap across the front (essentially at the front edge of your shoulder socket, horizontally across), but it occurred to me that it might make your arms difficult to raise, so I tabled the idea until I had more time to think on it.

 

If you connect the forearms to the biceps, then biceps to bells, they should all work together to retain alignment. Screen armor didn't have the inner strap at the back of the bicep and so some bells and arms were positioned all over the place. A good majority of the armor you see built today, including yours have the strap. Though not screen accurate it does help solve the alignment issue.

[kman[TK]]

If you connect the forearms to the biceps, then biceps to bells, they should all work together to retain alignment. Screen armor didn't have the inner strap at the back of the bicep and so some bells and arms were positioned all over the place. A good majority of the armor you see built today, including yours have the strap. Though not screen accurate it does help solve the alignment issue.

 

The issue I'm addressing isn't so much the shoulder caps rotating "incorrectly" but rather for me, they need to be "over-rotated" forward (on purpose), to help close the gap of black showing due to my wide shoulders.  If they're rotated forward, the amount of black exposed is considerably diminished.  But without some way to hold them in that artificial forward-rotated position, they naturally rotate back to a neutral position (which is correct for a smaller-framed trooper, but problematic for me)

 

I don't have great photos illustrating this, but this photo, from my EIB submission, looking at the left shoulder cap (right side of the photo), you can see it looks pretty decent.  My photographer (read: wife) carefully arranged the shoulders for the photo, of course, cheating the shoulder cap forward to it looked it's best. (the somewhat larger gap with the opposite shoulder should be ameliorated by the new strapping setup I've been building, so don't worry about that)

 

 

This work-in-progress photo, OTOH, which I snapped myself one evening earlier on during my build, using a timer, shows the shoulder cap in a more "natural" position (since I had no one to help arrange things):

 

 

Simply cheating the shoulder cap forward helps the overall appearance considerably, but I haven't yet figured out a way to help it stay that way, once I start moving around.

[ukswrath[Staff]]

If your shoulders are wide than they are wide, there's nothing you can do except for buy larger bells, which IMO your's aren't bad enough to warrant that.

 

Suggestion, if you haven't done so already remove almost all the lower bell edge. Make sure the lower strap is tight around the bicep so that it holds it as tight as possible. Zero gap at the top, and that's the best you can do. The guy I built the Anovos armor for has wide shoulders also and look how his armor fits. You still may have wider shoulders and that's ok, if it matters it will not be held against you at L3. Hope his helps   

 

[Stratcat96[TK]]

Reading through your thread Kalani has really alleviated some of my anxiety/confusion/"where do I start?" Regarding the strapping.

 

I began putting in the Anovos strapping, substituting industrial Velcro for the Anovos Velcro in the shoulder caps and through the bicep and forearm. I quickly realized I prefer the solutions for the chest to back that you have used rather than Anovos' kinda "flimsy" set up. I'm going to use your ideas and just use the Velcro for the ab-->chest, back-->kidney-->posterior.

 

For the side strapping, I'm still not sure how to go, although I really like your snap plate setup. I almost would like to use some elastic on the sides as I haven't shimmed, and will have maybe an inch of gap on the side. I want to leave the rivets non-functional.

 

As I said though, the thread is great and has helped myself and I'm sure many others too!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kman[TK]]

Thanks, Rob! Glad it was helpful.

 

You could easily use elastic on the sides, but I'd be sure to use some of the nice thick 2" like Anovos gives for the arms, so it doesn't stretch open too easily.

[Stratcat96[TK]]

Thanks, Rob! Glad it was helpful.

 

You could easily use elastic on the sides, but I'd be sure to use some of the nice thick 2" like Anovos gives for the arms, so it doesn't stretch open too easily.

That's a good idea, thank you for that. Probably two or three pieces on either side affixed with snap plates would work. I just picked my white elastic and webbing for the chest so I'll start with that first

 

 

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[kman[TK]]

Well, I've neglected this thread for too long, been busy trooping!  I've also been distracted by putting together an Imperial Staff Officer setup for use on days that I don't want to armor up (All approved, I'm ID-91423 as well now).  But it's time to dust it off and take a few more steps towards getting my TK to Centurion, which I'm starting to get annoyed with myself for neglecting.

 

I did come in a week ago and added navigation links to the first post, as it was getting far too hard to locate relevant information as this thread grew longer!

 

Meanwhile, onto the upgrades and changes:

 

I've done a pretty big overhaul of my helmet electronics.  I'm still sorting out exactly how everything is going to be, but I've switched from the iComm+Ukswrath's amp to a ROM/FX, which does the voice processing and clicks and amplifies all in one smaller unit.  Still running through the Hovi speaker tips.  I'm going to try to build a 3D printed case for the ROM/FX inside my helmet, and my printer is down at the moment, waiting for a new belt, so pictures will have to wait until I'm farther along.

 

My one complaint about the ROM/FX has been power... it needs 9V-12V to run.  12V worth of AA batteries is way too bulky, though, and 9V batteries are a pain (even if they're nice and small), plus the amplifier volume is lower with only 9V pushing it.  But I'm making progress on that front, I believe: I found an incredible (and very small) Voltage Step Up converter, which converts 5V power to up to 12V.  I need to test it some more with a multimeter before risking my ROM/FX, but I'm hoping that will let me simply use my nice rechargeable USB battery packs from the fans, for my ROM/FX, so I don't have to mess with freaking 9V batteries anymore.  The downside is I'll have to push both fans with only the one (remaining) battery back, instead of them having independent battery supplies, but considering a majority of the time I only use one of the fans anyway, I think I still won't have any issue getting through a majority of troops.  I should still get 4+ hours with two fans running, and even more with just one, so I doubt this will be an issue.

 

I ordered Ukswrath's "echo-style" fan bracket, mostly to see how it compares to the one I built myself.  Maybe I'll like it more, maybe I won't?  If not, I'm sure it'll be easy enough to sell.  As a bonus, though, that's designed and wired to run both fans off one USB power supply anyway, so it'll save me some rewiring.

 

Anyway, onto the actual Centurion submission items:

 

I have latex hand guards from JustJoseph63's sales thread.  Two pair, actually, so I can put one on my "Centurion rubber gloves" and have another set glued to my regular "everyday" Nomex flight gloves.  The color was not a good match to the Anovos plastic, however.  Fortunately BJ Browne, in the Anovos Stormtrooper Kit Building Group on FaceBook, had a run of custom-blended paint intended to exactly match the Anovos plastic.

 

So step one was to paint the latex guards.

 

You can see both sets of guards being painted here.  The upper guards are newer, and have been painted, while the lower guards are unpainted.  The lower unpainted guards are part of JustJoseph's original run, and interestingly, you can see it's shaped slightly differently from the newer ones. (they're a little flatter and ever so slightly larger)  Not a problem, just interesting.

 

 

I used good ol' E6000 to glue the hand guards to the gloves, per JustJoseph's tests and recommendation.  Interestingly, I'm told that whatever formula TrooperBay uses for their latex hand guards, it doesn't work as well with E6000.  You'd want to use CA glue for those.  But for Joseph's guards, E6000 worked best, per his tests.

 

Here are the newer hand guards, glued to my rubber Centurion gloves:

 

 

(Note: I think the guards are a little too close to the fingers on the gloves.  Ideally, they'd be 1/4-1/2" lower.  It works, but I like the spacing I used on my Nomex gloves better.)

 

And here are the first run hand guards, glued to my everyday trooping Nomex gloves:

 

 

(Excuse the dirty appearance of the left glove, I happened to wrap the gloves and guards in a magazine and taped the whole thing around a 32oz Gatorade bottle to shape it, while the glue dried, and some of the print came off onto the paint.  It'll clean up, but I was in a hurry and snapped this shot as it was.)

 

Also, just to show off the paint color comparison, here's one of the painted hard guards sitting on my Anovos shoulder cap:

 

 

So that takes care of that step.  The next two steps are cleaning up the helmet ear spacing a little (Thanks, Anovos) and ABS paste for seam removal for my side shims.  I took the first step, adding Acetone into my little baby food jar of ABS paste, since it had long since dried up.  It'll "rehydrate" and turn back to paste over the next day or so, and then hopefully I can start on those side shims.

 

One of these days I want to replace my helmet lenses as well, with a better plastic that has more clarity, but it's not high on my priority list.

[ScaryGuy[TK]]

I'm curious if you can get the step up voltage converter to work correctly with the usb powerpack. My converter tried to draw too much current when starting to speak causing the powerpack to shutdown. Would be nice getting it to work with a powerpack, I'm not happy using 9V batteries all the time.

[kman[TK]]

I'm curious if you can get the step up voltage converter to work correctly with the usb powerpack. My converter tried to draw too much current when starting to speak causing the powerpack to shutdown. Would be nice getting it to work with a powerpack, I'm not happy using 9V batteries all the time.

 

I have the step up converter, I just literally have not had time to play with it all and see if it actually works.  I want to test it with my volt meter before connecting it to a ROM/FX, of course!

 

The step up converter is designed to provide 12v power to a router from a USB battery bank during a power outage, judging by the description in the Amazon listing.  So it seems pretty perfect to take 5v power from a USB power pack and step it up to the 9-12v power the ROM/FX wants.  I just want to make sure it doesn't exceed 12v and fry my expensive board!

 

Oh, I also need to swing by a Radio Shack to pick up a 9v battery connector, hack off the existing connector, and solder it to the end of the converter wire, before I can get this going.

 

Fingers crossed I have time tonight... I'd like to use this as a troop this weekend, if there's time to get it all going.

[Stratcat96[TK]]

Kalani, I saw that you bought a Bracket fan system from Ukswrath. Have you put it in yet? I have mine secured with strategically placed Velcro around the bottom rim of my bucket but in doing so can't get the fans any lower than cheek height. I can deal with that, but I'm having a hard time figuring out where to put the battery. I was wondering how you did it

 

 

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[kman[TK]]

Kalani, I saw that you bought a Bracket fan system from Ukswrath. Have you put it in yet? I have mine secured with strategically placed Velcro around the bottom rim of my bucket but in doing so can't get the fans any lower than cheek height. I can deal with that, but I'm having a hard time figuring out where to put the battery. I was wondering how you did it

 

 

I put it in for the last troop I did (24 hour troop, so definitely a stress test!) and it did well, but I'm still working out final positioning details and how I want it hold it in place.  The material used for the bracket is a bit floppy... it's great while you're wearing the helmet horizontally, but things seem to flop out of position if the helmet is held upside down, etc., so I want to devise a system to keep it in place more securely.

 

Currently I just mounted the batteries with velcro, which seemed to do fine, but again, nothing is 100% final at this point.  One is higher up in the helmet, vertical, near the helmet pads, and the other is sort of diagonal across the side.  (the second battery now runs my ROM/FX since the Ukswrath setup only uses one battery for both fans)

 

I'll definitely post an update once I have things dialed in.

Edited October 3, 2016 by kman