New versions of lantern and chin light

I've put a lot of work into getting the ear pieces perfect but the parts I started with like the lantern housing have stayed largely the same thoughout the process.

As I discovered screenshots showing new angles I haven't kept up to date with some parts, namely the chin light and lantern. Some of this wasn't even apparent until I had the lantern housing printed in my hands.
So I decided to put some more work into them.


These are the new versions.

The plug at the back is visibly far larger than I had made it previously. 
The top transparent part was also far wider, with a large radius ridge and a wider angle on the sides, it's also supported by mesh like the front lens.

The peak and top of the housing are also not as high and the front is slightly angled (15 degrees to be exact).

Ep. "Kill the Moon"

Perhaps the lantern needs to be a little wider still, the peak block corners should also have less of a chamfer and the back block has a different angle to the top edge chamfers.
Still work to do apparently, but clearly improved.

Photo from the "Doctor Who Experience" in Cardiff. Note the mesh structure inside the top lens. To the right a "white" mesh material with a clear or possibly no lens mounted is visible.

Chin Light

The chin light was also not perfect so I changed it, although only minimally.

3D CAD model cut to show the layers of parts

Rough scraped and sanded parts just after printing, this photo also shows the insert holder for the LEDs. LED collars and 5 mm white LEDs will be fitted later. 

3D print sanded. 
The setting I used didn't create a perfect solid so fill texture is visible even after sanding.
I'll have to use filler and paint this housing before final assembly. Maybe for the best though becasue it has some scuff marks showing a glint of metal in some scenes in the show. That's best to add to a paint surface, not plain plastic which won't fool the eye and just look tacky.

Quick mockup showing what it'll look like. The curve of the base plate turned out to be a perfect fit on the helmet.

The chin light now uses the same lens cut from the weld visor lens material and a securing block behind it. I added LED collars because it's the easiest way to fasten them safely and they can be replaced later if needed.

 Photo above is from the episode "Impossible Planet" (All rights BBC, with David Tennant as the 10th Doctor) showing 3 distinct white LEDs behind a frosted (or say a protective covered) lens giving it a blueish tint.

Adding lens and mesh to the lantern housing

The lantern housing has now been sanded enough so that minor remainig scrathes will be filled in by painting.

So I was eager to try mounting the white lens and mesh backing.
I made a cardboard template, tried that in the window and then cut the welder lens I got in the box with the Pro-Cap helmet, leaving the protective white film on.
I strongly suspect this weld lens is what BBC used to make the lamp lens from. It comes with the helmets and is left over if you don't use the outer welding visor.

I cut the aluminium mesh the same size, trimmed off just a little on the sides and bent it slightly along its' length to fit it more easily.

Then I slid it into the slot behind the lens, had to work it in a bit and at the end I flattened the top by pressing it to the lens. Then I worked it home into the top slot.

Just a perfect fit!

Then, the light test, would it look as it does in the Show?

Comparing to a screencap from "Kill the Moon"

 I'd say yes! The seemingly white film even gives the same light blue tint to the light. And the lens also looks to be the right dimensions. :)

Wait... did I forget something?

Yes, I forgot the adapter block to attach the moved hose connector from the filter fan unit.

Upper right corner, the hose on the Procap helmet has the coupling for the hose at the base, but they moved it to make space for the bellows and change the look of it some. To do that they used an adapter block.

I just made a basic adapter block for the piece to go on, I'll need to adjust it because I have the part at home and I'm not home until the weekend.
I'll also have to model the coupling or this thilng'll never fit as it's supposed to. Note that my helmet mockup also doesn't have the ridge at the back as the real one has.
I'll have to figure this out.

Lantern housing being printed

Here's the Lantern housing being printed

The filament used is ABS+ silver with metal powder in it.

It's gray with a somewhat metallic look to it and is one of the more form-stable materials during printing, making it pretty smooth and exact.

This is before sanding

3D-printing has begun

The first parts printed are the side knobs.

3d print after sanding

Photo showing before and after sanding and assembly

The parts can be further smoothed with acetone.

Normally the minor remaining print lines is absorbed by painting, but the knobs are black plastic and I want to retain the natural look it has. So I'm thinking about it for this part.

In the meantime this is how it fits on the Pro-Cap helmet.

Ordering stickers

Today I ordered the stickers that go on the helmet

The patch graphics have helpfully been posted previously on Steve Ricks Blog on making the Space suit
I used these most excellent graphics for the patches to size and order my stickers for the helmet.
Thank you Steve! :)

First I decided the dimensions by adding the photos I had of them into the 3D model. The "square" sticker is supposed to fit on the flat space just under the lantern lens glass, the round sticker diameter looks about half the width of the lower reinforcement rib plate.

(Note that I coludn't cut the graphics clean so both are sharp cornered squares here, the real stickers will be figure cut to the black border)

This gave me the follwoing dimensions 26 x11 mm and Diameter 18 mm respectively.

Then I ordered vinyl stickers from stickerapp.se.
It was expensive for these custom sizes and shapes but hopefully worth it, to be sure I had enough I orderd 3 helmet sets (12 of the 26x11 and 6 of the D18).
Ordering from stickerapp.se they add a 0,4 mm wide white border as minimum that I'll cut away myself so the measures became 26,8 x 11,8 and D18,8.

Preparing to print

First I added miniature 0,5 mm flutings to facilitate press fit of certain parts, this especially works well with circular insert ends on filament printed parts.

I'm now finished with the 3D-models and I've exported them as STL-files which is a polygon format my print preparation program Z-suite can handle.

I positioned the model within the print space and so that only the very minimum of support structure is needed.

I've set the print to solid fill, 0,09 mm layer thickness and fine print and to add 0,1 mm to holes (the model shrinks compared to and I want the plugs to fit snugly but not press in at absolute same measure as the holes.

Then I added support structure (gray area under the model seen below) by choosing 40 degree support angle and it's generated by the program.

The Z-suite comes with the printer and is a very easy to work with tool.

Ear piece curve modified

As I mentioned in my last post the ear piece curve edge toward the visor needed to be changed. In the originals it simply doesn't fit perfectly so there's a slight gap you can see the face side leds through in some scenes.

The rubber lip hides this in most angles but not all.

Perhaps this is intentional to not have the helmet fully airtight (for safety reasons), perhaps they just didn't have time to get the edges to meet perfectly, who knows. But it's not a perfect fit, so I'm making mine the same way.

Gap shown

Doing that, the middle rivet lines up as it should, not quite straight with the edge of the wedge plate but close to it.
I may end up adjsting the edge toward the visor to an even larger gap but to see what it looks like I probably have to 3D-print parts and try fitting them to the IRL helmets I have.

Rivets added

Left side now has all the rivets but these need to be adjusted for position.

I noticed that the curve of the ear piece body against the visor needs to be tweaked as the middle rivet in that meeting edge should line up much closer to the inner wedge end.

Something like this (excuse the uneven freehand drawing):

I knew I made the ear piece a little too wide, I just coudn't figure out where and placing the rivets solved that. :)

Adding rivet rows to the chamfers

On the ear pieces there is one thing left to add -the rivets along the outer contour chamfers.

So I started doing this. It takes some time as almost every rivet requires a workplane set perpendicular to the surface.

Multiple planes sketches and planes are required to position the holes
perpendicular to a specific instance of curved chamfer

I've done about half of them today. 

First the bottom row.

Screencap from "Kill the Moon"

Adding holes and rivets along the chamferred edge of the CAD model

Then the top arc. Those are a bit offset to the bolts.

Screencap from "Kill the Moon" episode

Some holes and rivets still remain to be added and the exact positions on many of them need to be adjusted to be perfect, but it's a good start.

Adding fan units for the ear pieces

Today I added a fan to the filter insert assebly making it a neat pack to hook up to a battery

This will add additional airflow and cooling for the head when wearing the closed helmet, for comfort and safety. The main air supply is still delivered from the backpack fan unit but it's never bad to have more, or a backup if that system goes low on battery charge during a Con.