The Mandalorian - Full Costume Project

[zachfejes]

Photo update - first few layers of paint and sealant are down on the blaster, and I'm ready to up the sanding grit to 1000+ and get ready for actual paint-up.

I've also been working a lot of the helmet and the Pauldrons over the past few months - but I'll add a more detailed post going into my workflow for those!

 

[zachfejes]

I'm going to carve out some time to work on my version of the blaster this evening - I've kind of hit a blocker with the circuitry and it's time to solve it: I need to finish the switches and circuitry and mount them in the blaster.

I've added some space to the electronics channel in the grip to make it easier to modify/reprogram the board to have more functions later on. I'm going to mount the safety (power switch), the trigger switch, battery circuit, and also the power-cell light indicator. After that, I should have enough wire slop to thread into the grip - and that'll let me move on in the build.

 

[ob1korobi]

I love the picture of you posing with the helmet and pauldrons. I did the exact thing. Even the awkward pose so the pauldrons don’t fall off on the ground. I remember it well. Everything looks really good. How many pieces did you print the helmet in? Also where did you get your pauldron models? I would like to make those. Thanks.

 

[zachfejes]

I love the picture of you posing with the helmet and pauldrons. I did the exact thing. Even the awkward pose so the pauldrons don’t fall off on the ground. I remember it well. Everything looks really good. How many pieces did you print the helmet in? Also where did you get your pauldron models? I would like to make those. Thanks.

Thanks! Haha, it definitely feels like a mixture of awkward and super cool.

I printed the helmet on 8 primary pieces, each ear in two pieces, and the vent in a number of segments.

And I modeled the Pauldrons and the signet from scratch, using reference from the show!

 

[zachfejes]

I had a big go at the electronics for the blaster, and I've built out everything except for the microcontroller. I've tested each key element, and they're working as intended, so tomorrow I should be able to connect them to the board and clean the whole tangle up so that I can move on to joining the larger blaster pieces together.

 

[zachfejes]

Photo update after fitting the circuit!

 

[ob1korobi]

That looks really clean.

 

[jusdrewit]

Awesome work so far, can't wait to see more!

 

[zachfejes]

Slight delay on the blaster circuit work (details below if you're interested in electronics), so I've shifted gears to working on the chest armour. I've finished my first CAD model of the chest plate and have printed out a prototype to help me tweak and modify the design before printing the actual piece.

I've also done some carving work on my Mudhorn sigil and I love how it's finally taking shape! I can step up sanding grit now to get it smoother and ready for priming. I'm only going to attach it to the Pauldron after both are sanded down at least at 240 grit.




Details on circuit problem if you're interested: I thought of a better way to handle the power/recharging management of the circuit including a deep-sleep feature on the board (instead of outright shutting it off, which can result in a failure mode for the control board). Battery charge detection can't be done directly, but can be indirectly calculated by measuring the voltage of the battery. LiPos have a non-linear voltage range dependant on their remaining charge, and to shift down this voltage for the range to be detectable by the board, I've had to use a voltage divider. The way I designed this work well when the board is powered by the charged battery, but I didn't take into account is operation in the 'recharge' mode when the board is connected to a computer or another power source; the voltage divider is an easier path to ground, so none of the power gets to the battery. I've come up with a way to manage this dynamically but it requires PNP transistors and it seems I'm all out I've had to order some more which will take a little while.

 

[zachfejes]

Awesome work so far, can't wait to see more!

Thanks so much!

 

[zachfejes]

That looks really clean.

I'm glad you like it! Wiring can be so messy if you don't take time with it.

 

[zachfejes]

Quick update - my new transistors just arrived along with another board and LiPo battery for prototyping, so I'm going to rework my circuit diagram and then see about putting this thing together.

 

[zachfejes]

Okay, I'm pretty confident in the circuit design this time round. I'm switching up my design so that it is ALWAYS powered by the battery, but the Safety switch can put it into/bring it out of a deep-sleep mode that consumes very little power. The other issue was that the voltage divider (used to help calculate the current charge left in the battery) was providing another way to ground when the entire system was plugged into the computer via USB - which prevented the battery from recharging. I've added in a PNP transistor so now, under battery-powered operation, current can pass through the voltage divider and the board can read the `V_SENSE` value. When the board is plugged in to charge (5V), the USB voltage pulls up the PNP transistor. This opens the voltage divider circuit, leaving the battery as the only path to ground - and thus enabling charging.

A consequence of this is that I won't be able to assess the current battery charge WHILE it's charging, but I'm okay with that tradeoff. I'm just going to come up with a different LED sequence for the 'charging' state.

Here's my new circuit design, in case anyone's interested

 

[zachfejes]

Small update to the above circuit - my new circuit components arrived and I'm setting up a full prototype of each component. I've re-written the code to toggle a 'deep sleep' mode whenever the safety switch is used, and it's working great! Next up is to test my battery measuring circuit. For now, here's a quick update on the circuit from my last post - I realized I needed a pull-down resistor for the sleep-switch to ensure a floating value doesn't accidentally wake it up.

 

[kickman88]

I have really enjoyed your work so far which looks amazing! Hope all is well with you and yours and to get an update when you get the chance

 

[zachfejes]

I have really enjoyed your work so far which looks amazing! Hope all is well with you and yours and to get an update when you get the chance

Thanks for that kickman88 , it's been a really busy and turbulent few months so I haven't been able to make progress as consistently as I've wanted. However, I HAVE been hacking away at parts of the build and I have some cool updates I'll upload shortly thanks for the push!