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ukswrath's helmet electronics


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I just got Tony's awesome Hovi mics with the icomm, amp, PTT, etc. and his SHA. For now, I want to keep everything stock and not do his external power supply. Does anyone else have this combo and if so can you share your photos? 

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LOL, well the reason why I asked is because yours is customized to use the rechargeable battery in your chest plate. I will do this later on but due to crunch time of an upcoming troop I'm going to keep it all housed in the bucket and wanted to see how others have done it. 

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  • 7 months later...

Very nice feel free to post this on my sales thread if you're interested. 

 

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/31436-fs-ukswraths-hovi-mic-tips-with-speakers-crl-accurate-tips

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I need to take a photo of my bucket for you guys and share. I've come a long way lol. I own just about all of Tony's creations. If you haven't checked out his Gen 4 electronics thread, do so! Pretty rad to just run a cat5e cable to my chest and power everything up all day with no worries. Only difference was I opted for the bigger power supply. 

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Since practically everything else on our armor is very strictly tied to the CRL, it seems like our only expression of individual personality can be found within our helmets (literally and figuratively). Whereas for all intensive purposes most of our armor is identical from person to person, it's rare to find any two interiors the same which I think is a neat little factoid. Since we're all sharing, here's my final look:

 

UOVliLh.jpg

 

Everything is buried either at the top or at my switch junction box at the chin. This is a shot before I loomed it all up with everything exposed:

 

VsCQE6O.jpg

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I love this thread, not because I created it but to see so many awesome interior designs. It's just a matter of time before we have a state of the art yet cost effective electrical system for our helmets, and trust me I've been looking. Thank you to all that have contributed, please keep the ideas coming.

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Since practically everything else on our armor is very strictly tied to the CRL, it seems like our only expression of individual personality can be found within our helmets (literally and figuratively). Whereas for all intensive purposes most of our armor is identical from person to person, it's rare to find any two interiors the same which I think is a neat little factoid. Since we're all sharing, here's my final look:

 

UOVliLh.jpg

 

Everything is buried either at the top or at my switch junction box at the chin. This is a shot before I loomed it all up with everything exposed:

 

VsCQE6O.jpg

I...can't even begin to tell what all that is...
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LOL! Ok, let's break this down. You're looking at a very ugly before photo that shows all the raw electronics exposed and versus a final finished form after everything is cleanly loomed and mounted.

 

First and foremost, yes, the whole helmet is lined with vertical 1/4" strips of neoprene versus just painting it all black or rubberizing it or whatnot. It gives it a more comfortable thermal finish in my perspective.

 

So at the bottom you see a custom switch box controlling the three powered subsystems:  (1) 1.5V powered condenser mic; (2) 7.5V powered icomm/aker amplifier speakers; (3) 12.0V fan system, as well as mounting the external speakers that are housed within the hovi tips mounted onto it.

 

I stuck the fans at the base of the helmet with velcro, I can reposition them as necessary but they currently blow air in from the outside bottom directed inwards towards my nose for the mostpart which I find very helpful.

 

At the top, over my head, I put nearly everything else. You see the three physical power sources (1.5V, 7.5V, and 12.0V... all as rechargeable banks). Up top I mounted the iComm unit with the Aker amp and the 7.5V rail battery bank, the microphone and it's 1.5V rail battery bank, and the 12V fan rail battery bank.

 

Sure, it's a heck of a lot of electronics but putting it all into the helmet is a neat thing and the final finish makes it all look seamless and hidden, you wouldn't know that all of this is embedded in the helmet without this discussion. That is where I find the before/after photo quite interesting. Would you have any idea of what all was embedded in this bucket without that before photo? Probably not, and it gives you a good idea of what all is actually hidden inside it.

Edited by kamikaze
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I'm currently trying to maximize use of my hovi mic speakers but get horrid squeal if I turn them up more than a quarter. Yet when I just plug an mp3 player in full volume can be had. I've got to find a way to sound block from the front to my mic.

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I'm currently trying to maximize use of my hovi mic speakers but get horrid squeal if I turn them up more than a quarter. Yet when I just plug an mp3 player in full volume can be had. I've got to find a way to sound block from the front to my mic.

 

So, after lots of experimentation, I found the best solution to be wrapping my powered mic with cotton and then burying it at the top of the helmet under padding. Voice activation is seamless without needing PTT and I get zero squeal with the insulation. It did take some decent trial and error to find the right amount of padding and placement, but the end result is awesome. Just something to think about after having gone through that ordeal myself.

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LOL! Ok, let's break this down. You're looking at a very ugly before photo that shows all the raw electronics exposed and versus a final finished form after everything is cleanly loomed and mounted.

 

First and foremost, yes, the whole helmet is lined with vertical 1/4" strips of neoprene versus just painting it all black or rubberizing it or whatnot. It gives it a more comfortable thermal finish in my perspective.

 

So at the bottom you see a custom switch box controlling the three powered subsystems: (1) 1.5V powered condenser mic; (2) 7.5V powered icomm/aker amplifier speakers; (3) 12.0V fan system, as well as mounting the external speakers that are housed within the hovi tips mounted onto it.

 

I stuck the fans at the base of the helmet with velcro, I can reposition them as necessary but they currently blow air in from the outside bottom directed inwards towards my nose for the mostpart which I find very helpful.

 

At the top, over my head, I put nearly everything else. You see the three physical power sources (1.5V, 7.5V, and 12.0V... all as rechargeable banks). Up top I mounted the iComm unit with the Aker amp and the 7.5V rail battery bank, the microphone and it's 1.5V rail battery bank, and the 12V fan rail battery bank.

 

Sure, it's a heck of a lot of electronics but putting it all into the helmet is a neat thing and the final finish makes it all look seamless and hidden, you wouldn't know that all of this is embedded in the helmet without this discussion. That is where I find the before/after photo quite interesting. Would you have any idea of what all was embedded in this bucket without that before photo? Probably not, and it gives you a good idea of what all is actually hidden inside it.

Where did you get the junction switch box? That really looks great! I have a AM helmet with a hard hat liner installed, would love to do something like this to "make it amazing"!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Where did you get the junction switch box? That really looks great! I have a AM helmet with a hard hat liner installed, would love to do something like this to "make it amazing"!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Ok so the switchbox was crafted using a generic project box that I trimmed down on the beltsander to be 15mm deep and then I mounted the basic switches at the bottom into three holes I cut out. There are four holes at the top where the wire tubes lead out of, two of the tubes are for the fans, one going left and one right. The other two go up top along each side to switch the other systems. Here's a close up of the actual junction to get a better idea of what it looks like:

 

LMQDdi3.jpg

 

You'll notice the project box itself is mounted onto a backplate which I crafted from a 28ga steel sheet (and painted black), and has two mounting holes for the hovi tip ends to screw into which was the key to the whole setup. Having the hovis screw into that steel plate meant I had a nice secure flat surface to then mount the box onto making everything very solid.

 

This is the project box I used (the AS size): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002BBQNM

These are the switches I went with: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001JT7D0G

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  • 2 weeks later...

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