In my last post, I went over quite a few modifications I made to my armor. Most of the modifications were cosmetic or structural issues in nature. This week I have been busy with a few different projects and only had time for one major update to the armor.
As is the case with any type of full-body clothing, overheating is a real and serious issue I have with this suit. My first outing in the suit back in October 2018 clearly highlighted each and every limitation of the armor. Visor fogging, heat pooling in the helmet, poorly fitted areas, etc. I have a few solutions in mind for cooling the bodysuit, but those updates may prove to be a bit costly and will have to wait for a future date. Cooling off the helmet and eliminating the fog on the visor, however, could be done with just a couple of dollars.
The helmet is molded plastic and due to the size and shape of the Chief’s armor, this leaves quite a lot of space inside. The helmet comes stock with a 1/4 inch layer of black EVA foam padding that lines the top, sides, and rear of the helmet interior. Even with this padding, I still looked like a bobblehead wearing this thing. As you can tell from the image above, I already began cutting and test fitting different size foam blocks to make this a tighter fit, and to figure out what space would be available for me to install some new toys.
Using my calipers, I took some interior measurements and found that I had just enough space in the cheek area of the helmet to inlay two 60mm cooling fans. A quick visit to Amazon and I found exactly what I was looking for here. The purpose of the fans is two-fold. The most obvious purpose is to fix the overheating problem inside the helmet but circulating the air. The second thing to get resolved upon installation of the fans is the visor fogging issue. The air circulation helps to remove the hot air from both my breathing and my body heat.
After a few test fits, I committed to a spot and attached the fans using hot glue. I considered using a more permanent form of attachment at first but decided it would be better if I were able to remove these fans in case they stop working, or if I found the placement to be bothersome. This was a pretty simple install so far. Now I needed a way to power these things.
Being the kind of guy that I am, I have boxes of old wires and electronics all over the place. luckily I remembered that I had this old powerpack in one of those boxes during this project. It is unmarked and I have no idea where I got it from. All I know is that it has more than enough output for my project.
Now that I know everything will work, I needed a home for the powerpack. I decided to remove some of the 1/4 inch foam from the rear of the helmet and store it there.
After I seated everything, all that was left was to hide all the wiring behind the 1/4 inch foam and hot glue everything back together again.
The whole system can be activated via a small button on the base of the power pack. Considering that the interior of the helmet is not visible, I didn’t put a lot of effort into cutting clean lines. With all of this finished, it was time to reinstall the foam padding and charge the helmet up. 
You may be wondering about the headset resting on the helmet in the above photo? Well, that is a part of the character I am crafting over on my Twitch stream.
You see, I’m not making all of these improvements to the suit just for the fun of it. I hope to one day, be able to do something more with myself. I would like to do something I am passionate about without fear or consequence. I am passionate about creating, gaming, and having a good time. Hopefully, I can tie it all together into something great. If not, at least I’m having fun along the way.
Thanks for your time.
