Daft Punk Thomas Helmet -- Skipped a few chapters

tekparasite said:

Here's what I have found so far. My hope is that people using this method will be able to make their equipment work depending on the chipset in their electronic board.

NOTE: It looks like SureElectronics has switched to a new chipset from HT1632 (old) to HT1632C (new)

Q: How do you which chipset is in your electronics board?
A: One way is to test the different code sets to see which one works.
The code that works with the old chip is here. The code that works with the new chip is here. If you buy the board from their website, chances are you'll get the new chip set. Some old boards are still floating around on Ebay


Q: What's the mapping to the old board?
A: Given the matrix labels referenced below, here are the pin mappings for the OLD board.

Q: What's the mapping to the new board?
A: Given the matrix label referenced below, here are the pin mappings for the NEW board.

Matrix Label Reference

The wiring between Arduino and the SureElectronics board remains the same.


I hope that helps.

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JLight said:

Just ordered my Arduino Nano and matrix. Any chance you'd share the code for using the switch to control the messages? I'm not building the same helmet but using your display method for a halloween costume.

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JLight said:

Would you share your code? Did you use interrupts or just if statements?

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colonelmasako said:

Well it would be difficult to share the code, I don't know where I could safely put it, but I can describe what I did.

First I built the pot box with my five switches. Then I made the physical header and connected to one of the analog pins.

Inside the "loop" part of the code, I assign an "int" variable by the analogRead function of the analog pin I chose. This will update every time the code loops for the next pattern. I then printed it to the terminal using SerialPrint to see the analog read value change with each switch. I need to update mine to ranges, rather than concrete numbers, since for example my 5V read value is sometimes 1023, sometimes 1021, its random.

As for changing patterns, in the large case statement where he calls out his patterns, I put in a master if statement for the 5 switch positions. I made the first 4 different patterns, which I copied the code directly out from the case statements. I made the 5th switch the default, running through the case statements one by one in sequence.

This works as often as the analogRead value updates, but it seems to work pretty well. I tried messing with the pattern tracking counter, but that never worked for me. A simple approach was better.

"if" statements were tricky in the "loop" part of the code, so I used this:
stoploop1 = (analogval = 1023 || analogval = 1022) ? 1: 0;

Hope that helps

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tekparasite said:

Here's a little update.

Time to start placing components inside the helmet.

First was the placement of the SureElectronics booard. Surprisingly, mounting the board in this spot in such orientation gives me plenty of room to put my head in. I may have to put some sort of brace between my head and the board as there is really too much room inside. That's a good thing.

I'm using a 1" long bolt with Tee Nut attached to the helmet to secure the board. Notice also the shaved corners on the board. This was used to bring the board a bit closer to the helmet.

I also put some foam padding as it was really wobbly without any kind of support.

before continuing any further, I decided to paint the inside of the helmet with black acrylic paint.

I had to do some preliminary test of the mounting of the matrix, just to make sure it still fit.

everything was in check! :thumbsup

I removed the matrix and the tinted visor went in first.

Wow!!!:love That was the first time I had seen the tinted visor with chrome.

Now, it was time to put the matrix back in...

I used these 1" x 1" plastic mounting bases and zip ties to secure the wires. These mounting bases come with a sticky foam; however, I removed the stock sticky foam and used 3M Outdoor mounting tape instead because this stuff is heavy duty and won't come off easily.

I continued running wires all the way to the back. I purposely made the harnesses longer to have room to connect and disconnect without having to worry about pulling a connector.

Also notice on the picture below between the SureElectronics board and back side of the helmet, I have mounted the Arduino Nano with its USB port facing to the outside for ease of updating code. I mounted the arduino using the same mounting bases with zip ties.

The next picture shows a few more plates and zip ties to secure these wires. Now, I know it can look a lot cleaner by cutting the excess length and redoing the terminations, but I just don't feel like doing that. Besides, nobody will ever see these wires anyway.

This is what I admire about Volpin. If this was his bucket, he would have terminated every wire at the perfect length..etc.. but I'll keep moving forward with what I have.

Now look at this little punk!!!!

Now, the picture above was taken with 100% bright flash at a relatively close range. By the way, after doing some tests, there is NO WAY people can see your face even in bright daylight. Also, my visor is really not that dark in tint, but enough to hide all the unlit LEDs.

All in all, it looks awesome. Obviously, a video will be a better way to show that, but I'll do one later.

The next step is to install the side boards, finish padding the helmet for a good fit and do the final control box.

getting closer.

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dogman5000 said:

Hi,one more question on your amazing build. what connects to where?!? everything looked fine when it came to connecting until the back part lol. Thanks

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tekparasite said:

...now when I said I was going to 'hack' the crap out of this SureElectronics module, I meant that literally.

So, here's the module intact

I'll admit. There are cleaner (better) ways of detaching these panels from the main board; however, not knowing what I was going to see, I decided to go with brute force cutting.

I picked up this small saw from a hobby shop.

Took a deep breath and started cutting. As you can tell, the panels have these legs on all 4 corners, so I knew I had to cut through that plus anything else in the middle that was also connected.

I tried my best to keep the saw blade from rubbing against the circuitry in the SureElectronics board.

Here's the back of the first removed 8x8 LED panel.

... and here's what is left behind on the SureElectronics board after removing all 4 panels. Notice the white squares on the board outlining the footprint of each panel.

It was extremely difficult to get any sort of voltage and/or amp readings from the main board given that I didn't know what each pin was doing. :confused

So, my next step was to decipher the 8x8 LED panel matrix and see if I got anything out of that using simply trial-and-error method.

I rigged the panel with these angle headers to make it easier to test. Then, using a battery + resistor, I fixed the positive lead to one pin and tested all other pins while looking to see if anything would light up.

Please note that before removing the LED panels, I marked their orientation (top,bottom,left, side). I also marked each with 1,2,.. so the side shown in the picture below is the right side of the first panel.

I had to rig two panels with headers like the one above. Not that I needed two, but my boys thought I was making spider robots. . So each had to have one.

After some more trial and error, I figure out that connections do not vary from panel to panel. That's a :thumbsup in my book.

.. and here the answer to the puzzle.

As the picture shows, rows are anodes and columns are cathodes. So if I wanted to light up the shown LED, I would have to connect E(+) and 6(-).

More importantly, here's the same reference, but now from the SureElectronics pins.

The next step was to make the connections from the SureElectronics board to my matrix using these references.

First step was to equip the SureElectronics board with headers

Then, work on the wire harnesses.

more to come.

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Formori said:

This is an awesome thread with tons of useful info, I'm using it (and about a hundred other people) to build my own helmet!

Just a note on the Sure Dot matrix display boards, the new 3mm LED 8032 Matrix display has the resistors on the back of the board so you don't need to worry about damaging them when removing the LED matrix blocks. Also, it's a lot smaller and more compact than many of the display boards they sell, so it's a perfect fit for this!

I've got my Artfunk cast almost prepped for paint, the electronics done except the LED visor wiring, and I'm planning on using Spazstix chrome spary (I'll live with whatever the outcome is but I'm curious how it'll look, since I'm supposed to be able to clearcoat the stuff).

This thread has been an inspiration, thanks so much!

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