Ironman Face plate mechanism via use of servo, lighting control all run via blue tooth?

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Hi Everyone,

I’m VERY NEW TO THIS sort of thing, I haven’t done any type of coding or anything like that but I want to learn!

So I’ve spent the last 400hrs 3D printing an Ironman Helmet, Now I’m wanting to make the face plate move up and down I’ve designed a leaver and hinge to allow the faceplate to move up and down but i have know idea how to make the servo move, i spent the weekend researching and found that I could buy a SparkFun servo trigger to allow me to move the servo, I looked at hopefully using a toggle switch or perhaps a bluetooth device to be able to push a button and have the helmet move up, then flick the switch back and have the helmet close.

I own a soldering iron but have only soldered bigger cables (on my 3D printer) have never soldered anything small. So I’m a little worried on that part.

I Also want to make the eyes light up as well, I’ve read a lot of posts on the internet on how to do that but I’m very unsure on how that’ll work as well.
So perhaps there is a few tutorials i can do to learn how these things work. I’m also looking for some sort of board that maybe able to control the servo or servos (a couple for various parts of the helmet) as well as the lighting of the eyes, even putting a head set and micro phone connecting to bluetooth to allow you to use voice recognition or even to make a call.

I know that may seen kinda ridiculous in a sense but i’d like to give it a try.

Id like to some how have a screen either located in the helmet as show in a photo attached or located on the arm. if the screen was located in the helmet perhaps even have it controlled via voice and button.

I have know idea what i need to complete any of this, I really need help! but I want to learn. I do work full time in the army but i do have a lot of free time to learn new things.

So I’ve uploaded a few images of my helmet so far, Im working off another type of design done buy someone else but changing it further. being a new user i could only upload 3 images sorry.

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Helmet 4.jpeg1142×676 125 KB
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Helmet 2.jpeg1592×1056 257 KB
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20180626_120247.jpg4032×2268 2.44 MB

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Hi Alexander!

Very cool project! I’d be happy to help you along the way to seeing this come together. There are a lot of ways that you can make this come together. Let’s focus on getting you the skills you need to be able to pull it off. We’ve got a bunch of great tutorials that will walk you through everything you need to be able to make this happen.

Some of these elements are pretty advanced, like voice recognition and making calls. Its still possible, but lets put those on the back-burner for now.

First off, I recommend you practice soldering a bit because that’s something you will probably need:


There are some great YouTube videos out there as well. At the end of the tutorial, there are links to a couple soldering practice kits where you solder all the components onto a board. These are great practice, and inexpensive enough that its ok to mess up.

The next step is to learn a bit about micro-controllers. You can either dive straight into a programming language or go for a graphics based programmer where you drag and drop blocks that snap together. The best way to learn with either is to pick one up and start tinkering with projects. Then you can mix and match what you’ve learned to fit this project!

The best learning kit for Arduino is The SparkFun Inventors Kit. This kit is great because it has lots of parts and comes with detailed guides about how to program them. It includes a servo, LEDs, buttons, and a display, and instructions about how to use them all. This is my recommendation, it is a little harder to get started than a graphic programmer, but you can do anything with it once you’ve learned it.
We also have tutorials to walk through the same projects:


and an online workshop for everything Arduino:

I would probably use a smaller Arduino board in your final build, but all these elements would still work, and the coding would be transferable.

If you want to go the graphic programmer approach, then you could check out the Circuit Playground Express or the BBC MicroBit. They both use MakeCode to program, and we have exhaustive tutorials on each. The circuit playground would get you up and running for the servo and lights really fast, but it would be difficult to make a display or Bluetooth work with it.

Hopefully that’s enough to get you started! Let me know if you have any questions or want any direction!

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I definitely agree with Stephen, an Arduino would be a great way to work with the servo, lights and buttons. As for the more advanced bluetooth side of things, I’d suggest a Raspberry Pi Zero W for when you get up to that. You can easily connect a bluetooth headset, and there are a few voice recognition packages that you could use to send commands to the Arduino through a serial cable. If you only want or can fit a single board in the helmet, it would be possible to do everything on the Raspberry Pi Zero W, as long as you only had 1 servo and 1 light output (there are only 2 PWM outputs).

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Alexander, that’s an awesome helmet! I’m considering making a predator helmet and the eyes need to flash. I found this which I plan to use:


There are youtube videos that show how to use it.

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Sneaky,

I think you might have a hard time seeing out of that mask! :rofl:

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No, you can see fine apparently. The plastic led layers are transparent, and even with the led lights on you can see through it if the room is decently lit. Check out the youtube videos. I was surprised by it also.