Tron Legacy Costume

Anyone doing the El wire diffusion method:
What material works best for the top layer?
I've heard shower curtain, but all the ones I've found seem
to be too clear, and not opaque enough...
HELP PLEASE!!!

Just don't try to diffuse Red EL Wire, it looks crap, you'll have better luck with White or Blue.
 
Anyone doing the El wire diffusion method:
What material works best for the top layer?
I've heard shower curtain, but all the ones I've found seem
to be too clear, and not opaque enough...
HELP PLEASE!!!
What I did that seemed to work rather well was to stick clear contact paper (the stuff typically used to cover cupboard/pantry shelves) over the top of my translucent shower curtain liner. Don't let the "clear" in the name fool you. It does look clear when pressed against something, but viewed from even the slightest distance it has sort of a pebble-ish translucency to it that helps spread the light more evenly across the gap. It looks best with two layers of both curtain and paper. I found both at dollar tree, but any store that sells kitchen stuff should have it.
 
Has anyone worked with cuttable EL sheets? I've been looking online and haven't found much info on it, but I've seen pictures of people's tron costumes that use it. Any recommendations/tips??
 
Solid job! How did you end up making the turns for the EL tape - did you just crease it or use separate strips?


I sure am! and still gotta work on my Siren Gem. It is SOOOOO complicated that pattern. My seamstress friend is helping me, she is a pro pattern maker and she is even having trouble getting it right. Just too many odd angles. Then dealing with trying to rubberize it, what a mess that was. I am crossing my fingers I will have Siren Gem for D*Con! I SOOOOOO am itching to wear it!

I will be posting my SDCC Quorra pics as soon as I start getting some in. Here is one for now.

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Yes, please let me know if it works out. I really hate that the strips are all pink in the daylight. Sunlight is just too strong over the lighted Lite Tape strips. If I can get rid of the pink phosper by covering them up I can wear my Quorra costume in the day time as Conventions. The lighting may not show up but as long as the strips are not showing pink it is not so bad. I missed showing my costume off the entire convention and only wore it just as the sun set, it was perfect, everyone was tripping out and amazed at my costume but, I missed out on getting any coverage walking around inside CON.




Nice Nice excellent work! Now, how did you power the shoes? Was there a battery in each shoe? Or wiring all the way up your legs to the jacket to power them? That is how I powered my Quorra boot right side leg light.
 
Just wanted to post a couple photos of the front and back of my 3rd and final revision to my Quorra costume. Here it is with its new lite tape El Panel in white from Luminous Film. No time to get into now but, it was a complete B*TCH to work with. Well, because I had no idea how critical the install had to go.

I will be posting back after Comic Con exactly what to do and what not to do to get this lite tape to work properly. All lights are on stable now, I have not worn it so I cannot report my final results wearing this suit of lights until after Comic Con. I barely finished the install last night after many days and sleepless nights, it is complete.

I will be debuting my costume this Saturday at the San Diego Comic Con International in the evening around 6pm. The Pink off phosphor tape still looks Pink even when on in bright day light. If I wear this thing in the day time at Con, you are going to see a bunch of pics of me online of the suit lights looking Pink! LOL! I do not want that because I am sure I will be many ppl not understanding why the lite tape is pink due to the phosphor coating. My suit looks incredible at night and so bright white! I love the way it came out!

My outer ID disc ring lights are weak. Only have the original LEDs in there at the moment that came with the disc. I need to add an SMD LED strip in white to enhance Soulenertia's clear disc ring mod I ordered. No time to do it now. It's amazing how long a costume like this takes to put together.

Anyone else going to SDCC this weekend please look for me, I will be making my way around 6pm to the Masquerade press photo stage area outside of Ballroom 20. I take my costume photos there every year even though I do not enter the Masquerade costume contest. 8000 + ppl starring at me on stage expecting me to entertain them, flat out scares me :p plus, you have to spend most of Sat. waiting behind stage for your turn to go on. I have much more fun socializing with the other cosplayers and taking photos than waiting backstage to try and win a costume contest ;)

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ANNI!!!!
My Friends got to see you but i didnt and now im all depresseded!!!
once i finish Castor you and i are takin pictures
:sleep: YUS
 
I decided I wanted hexagons on my shirt, but they needed to be visible under the jacket. I finally tracked down a shirt that I think works. I still need to black out the McDavid text, but I think I am going to keep the logo.

Also, I have applied the window film to the EL and five layers do not block the color when the panel is off, but I still need more parts to power it up. I may also try picking up some translucent white paint to add some more opacity to a single layer of window film.

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Great Job. Sorry I missed you and everyone else at Comic con. Hope you all had as much fun as I did! :)

I sure am! and still gotta work on my Siren Gem. It is SOOOOO complicated that pattern. My seamstress friend is helping me, she is a pro pattern maker and she is even having trouble getting it right. Just too many odd angles. Then dealing with trying to rubberize it, what a mess that was. I am crossing my fingers I will have Siren Gem for D*Con! I SOOOOOO am itching to wear it!

I will be posting my SDCC Quorra pics as soon as I start getting some in. Here is one for now.








Yes, please let me know if it works out. I really hate that the strips are all pink in the daylight. Sunlight is just too strong over the lighted Lite Tape strips. If I can get rid of the pink phosper by covering them up I can wear my Quorra costume in the day time as Conventions. The lighting may not show up but as long as the strips are not showing pink it is not so bad. I missed showing my costume off the entire convention and only wore it just as the sun set, it was perfect, everyone was tripping out and amazed at my costume but, I missed out on getting any coverage walking around inside CON.




Nice Nice excellent work! Now, how did you power the shoes? Was there a battery in each shoe? Or wiring all the way up your legs to the jacket to power them? That is how I powered my Quorra boot right side leg light.
 
Thank SOOOO MUCH for all your positive feedback on my newly revised lighted Quorra suit :) I am really pleased with it but, it is still pressed with issues.

In regards to using LuminousFilm.com El Panel flat lite tape. Make sure your solder joints from the wire connections to your eyelets or ETCO clips, whichever you decide to use, are solid. I had two breaks from the solder joint to the eyelet and wire. Those wires are so hair thin and with the friction of walking, basically make them snap off. Freaking so annoying and sucks. I had to use electrical tape to hold the now broken off wire back to the eyelet which had my leg shorting out, blinking on and off all night long. This is where my 1st break occurred. Then the other was way later in the evening from my right leg to the boot. At that point there was nothing that could be done. Too tired to deal with it all.


Then the damn plugs. Another annoying aspect. If you don’t get those pins pushed all the way threw and a solid connection in the plug from female to male pin, that can cause more issues. I had one male pin on one end of my plug not matching up to the other end of the plugs female pin connection. I had to electrical tape the plug to hold it tight together so the male and female pins were touching. Then the plugs on my leg were so bad beyond repair with no solder or soldering iron or new pins to install in my hotel room, finally Tom, my fiancée, had to pull the plugs off and hard wire my leg wire to the chest armor where the leg was getting its power from.

Man, what a mess. I was so disgusted and tired from no sleep for days I couldn’t even get upset but, we got the suit to light up.

Now for some reason the right side only of my chest armor the bigger one inch wide light strip side from front to back was shorting out all night, I still haven’t investigated my suit to see where the short is coming from but, again, I bet you it’s a solder point that is about to come loose that's attached to a clump of wires I have soldered together in the back.

Overall despite my suit shorting out in the leg and right chest light. OMG! I got SOOOOOOO many photos taken of me as soon as I hit a dark room in the masquerade overflow viewing room and party area! It was amazing! Everyone was asking, how are you lighting up your suit? And how is it powered? I told some ppl about the RPF when it came to my disc mod that these suits and my disc mod were a group effort from members of the RPF. Not that they’ll remember all the details I am sure it was so crazy that night at SDCC but, I couldn’t leave out all the members that helped make my suit and disc HAPPEN and come to life. It really was a group effort and the RPF is definitely the main source for, I think, the world to come to and figure out how to light up and basically create a Tron light up costume.

Be proud!!!! :D :thumbsup

Here’s another pic before leaving my hotel room at SDCC. You can kinda see my disc on my back reflection on the glass window. ;)

Oh and my EOL Club waitress dress. I have more pics but gotta upload them still. No problems with the lighting on this dress cuz it was only one strip, creased at the angled areas. My Quorra angles were achieved by cutting the strips to get the angles and connecting them with cooper small 2mm eyelets. I didn't want all those thick heavy creases the Lite Tape creates when folding it over.


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In regards to using LuminousFilm.com El Panel flat lite tape. Make sure your solder joints from the wire connections to your eyelets or ETCO clips, whichever you decide to use, are solid. I had two breaks from the solder joint to the eyelet and wire. Those wires are so hair thin and with the friction of walking, basically make them snap off.
Sounds like you need a strain relief for the connection. Have you tried using some heat-shrink tubing to cover each solder joint and stiffen everything up?

And as I've said before, you're rockin' the Quorra look. Totally awesome. :cool :thumbsup
 
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I wish I was there to see your new costumes. I would use hot glue to hold the wires in place on the back of the tape. Then any flexing would be at the insulated portion. I was constantly making repairs on my kid's costume too. Wires pulling off and the staple connections working loose. But when it was on, everyone thought it was coolest thing. Too bad I didn't see many others attempt a light up tron costume at sdcc. I thought there would be more.
 
Is everyone using lead-free solder, or are you having problems with lead based solder as well? The military does not use the lead-free (RoHS compliant) because it is not as reliable as lead solder under stress.

These failures could also be from cold solder joints where the solder did not flow properly. (Higher melting temp of lead-free solder vs lead solder could be contributing to this).

The aforementioned strain relief solutions should help prevent solder joint breaks.
 
Hello,

I just recently purchased some lead free solder not sure if the previous one I had was lead free.

So for the lead free time, I am screwed, and these breaks will happen once again? I need to make repairs to my Quorra costume lighting and now worried since this was mentioned about lead-free solder I will get breaks again.

Thanks for the tips about insulating the solder joint areas. I think I will try the hot glue that twinight mentioned. Maybe even epoxy. I used epoxy on the eyelet connectors. which worked well to make sure none of them came loose or shifted around.

OH!!!!! before I forget, when using LuminousFilm product you must make sure that the eyelet connectors are very strongly tightly secured to the Lite Tape. Hammer those things in there good. That was one of the initial problems I had which caused the lite tape to flicker on and off. When I re-eyeletted strongly the ones that were loose, flicker problem solved. Then I added the epoxy on top of all of them to make sure that flicker problem would not happen.

UGH! so many places things can go wrong with this stuff. Just when you think you figured it all out. Well, maybe now I have once I get those solder joints secured from all the friction of walking and moving around.
 
I have been thinking about stuff... I think my plan for body shells may be a bit too... Thick.

I watched the film again today. Their suits are really thin. So I have an idea...

I'm going to sculpt out a body panel (unless it's not like the upper body or whatnot and doesn't have a 3D-ish shape,) and coat it with some sort of release agent or something that plastidip doesn't bond to... Then spray on plastidip... OR, heat-shape sheets of rubber over it if I can find it thin enough. If it's just a layer of rubber like the movie, (with the fabric layers and hidden electronics of course,) then I may not be as restricted in movement, and it will look a lot less bulky. Plus, if I build-it right, I can easily replace the rubber shell on every panel... (The electronics would be on the fabric layer below the rubber...) So even though it is cheaper in terms of quality, I can damage it and fix it cheaper and easier as well...

I plan on filming an after-movie to Tron: Legacy, and being able to damage the costume without actually damaging the costume would be cool. I also (this is not related to this thread by much, rather, just Tron in general) thought about how the light strips would act if damaged in the real world... I imagined (and mocked it up with a friend who is briliant at SFX,) that they would start "leaking" tiny glowing transparent cubes of light in a glowing goop or sorts, and the strips on the suit would deplete... It looks cool when a light-jet get's shot down by a light tank and the user in the suit is falling and rolling onto pavement with their suit getting ripped to shreads, later when they get up, little light cubes seeping like blood down arms and legs and such... As well as blood... It's brilliant looking...

(Back to the suit,) It's just a thought. I'm not starting the suit at all until I finish the helmet anyway... I am making progress though... Need a different foam as the one I chose is rather stupid... It likes to come away in chunks instead of carving away beautifully... :-/
 
Now you have me worried about using the crimp style connectors Annisse. I may have to go back to tracking down small eyelets.

Lead-Free solder should be more reliable with strain relief, but I avoid it unless I am doing plumbing. I will try to put together a stress test today and see how lead based works on a staple.
-----------------------------
Edit: Updates...

Wire test: stranded 24AWG soldered to a staple
First clip I am trying to break the joint and succeed, the second clip I have soldered the same wire back on and run a more gentle test and the wire breaks. It looks like even just attached to a staple the solder joints should be holding up to walking around.


Also, my new reed switches arrived and they seem to work. The camera is still making the lights look to flash irregularly. They run smoothly in person.
--------------------------
Edit: New video here:
http://www.therpf.com/f24/tron-legacy-costume-88230/index166.html#post1815957
 
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Thanks for the tips about insulating the solder joint areas. I think I will try the hot glue that twinight mentioned. Maybe even epoxy. I used epoxy on the eyelet connectors. which worked well to make sure none of them came loose or shifted around.
I would recommend something flexible (like silicone-based epoxy), otherwise you'll create another stress point where the wire exits the epoxy glob.

As for soldering to staples, did folks make sure to clean and prep the staples with alcohol before soldering? There may be residues or coatings that prevent the solder from sticking well. Also, if the staple is not copper or tin, your regular electronic solder might not stick well.
 
I would recommend something flexible (like silicone-based epoxy), otherwise you'll create another stress point where the wire exits the epoxy glob.

As for soldering to staples, did folks make sure to clean and prep the staples with alcohol before soldering? There may be residues or coatings that prevent the solder from sticking well. Also, if the staple is not copper or tin, your regular electronic solder might not stick well.

I would recommend a soldering flux to clean off the surface of whatever you are soldering to. That'll ensure a clean connection.
 
I have not tried to solder to a staple. I imagine it has to be soldered before attaching the the el tape other wise it would melt the plastic. I use the staple to hold the wire against the EL electrode. I have not had a wire pull of or break, but my problem is getting a good contact between wire and el tape. I use permatex defroster repair paint. It's essentially a copper conductive paint. I staple the wire to the el tape (after exposing the conductive surface) and then paint it which fills in the gaps and creates more surface contact area. With the thin conductor on the glowhut tape, it's difficult to keep the paint from shorting out against the other conductor when applying.
Once done, it held up on my kid's costume during comic con.
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