Manufacturing the Helmet

Manufacturing the Visors

To manufacture the visors, I would need to learn vacuum forming. The first step was making the vacuum forming buck. This model was already designed by the original helmet maker, but it needed to be modified to fit onto the vacuum former I had available. It was initially printed in 3 parts of PETG plastic, epoxied together, then had gaps filled with car body filler, but under the heat of the vacuum former, it failed on its first try. The second buck was printed in one complete piece out of PETG plastic, meticulously sanded, then filled with concrete to zap heat away from the plastic. This solution ended up working almost flawlessly. The only issue was, as the concrete slowly expanded over roughly a month, the buck began to crack, but by that time, I had already gotten my use out of it. To actually make the visors, the buck was put below a piece of acrylic, a heating element would be placed over the acrylic and once it began to droop, a vacuum would be pulled where the buck sat as it would get lifted into the acrylic to create a perfect shell of the buck.

Several of these shells were made in different thicknesses, at different temperatures, with different plastics, all to gauge which would function the best. Before determining that though, they first had to be cut and dip dyed to give them their sleek black look by dunking them into a boiling pot of dye. Once they were cleaned up, I was able to determine that a medium thickness dip dyed layer under a clear thin layer functioned the best to protect the tint while keeping it thin enough to still be held on by magnets.

CAD

The green parts in the model below are where the topology of the original design were used, although they may be modified. For example, with the pop up camera, original topology was used but the original topology did not contain any kind of pop up camera feature. Another example is with the holes surrounding the visor border where the magnets sit into place. The original design had only four holes for magnets, but I found four to not nearly be enough to hold the visor in place.

All modifications to this STEP model were made in Fusion 360. I found it especially difficult to add features to this helmet given the already tight space, but I was able to find some mounting space near the chin, ears, and top of the head. This design was never intended for actual protection, but rather a fun design project, so I was able to push the remaining space to its limits. Near the ears are two servo motors, which used to be stepper motors, that control custom linear actuators to move panels in and out for ventilation. In these ear panels are also mounting points for LED strips for some added flair. Near the chin is where two fans, two 9-volt batteries, two power supply modules, a Raspberry Pi, a Raspberry Pi Battery Module, and mini display are all mounted. It was a rather bulky set up, but it was what I could make with what I already had on hand. Lastly, on the top of the head lies a spot for a flip up camera that would act as the source for the heads up display.

Sketching

Because this was such a long project, many sketches were made while drafting up the design and eventually fixing it later on. The two main ones though were the ventilation sketch and the wiring diagram. The ventilation sketch (shown below on top of a blue version of the original maker’s helmet) outlines the original concept for what would replace the static circular element in the original design in order to allow for better cooling inside the helmet. It also conveys the concept of a custom PCB for the LED lighting compared to the LED strip used now. In the cut views in the bottom right, it shows how I was going to use stepper motors instead of servos before I realized that strategy would not fit the organic structure of the actual helmet. The wiring diagram sketch (shown just below the ventilation sketch), displays how each component would be connected so that I could ensure each component would have a proper wiring path while 3D modeling. The remaining sketches below these two outline various versions of the mechanism used for pushing the ventilation caps in and out.