FOUND PART!!! Helmet keyslot circuit board

[Art Andrews]

A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to discover that the keypad on Fett's gauntlet was a Casio MQ-1 calculator.

Last week I made a second discovery.

I was determined to figure out what type of electonic chip can be seen in the keyslots on the back of the Fett helmet. To make a very long story short I learned more about IC chips than I EVER wanted to know. When that utterly failed to help me, I began using mesurements of the keyslots to determine the size of the chip and board. I had thought about the MQ-1 early on as a possibility but had dismissed it as being to small to cover the keyslots but after taking measurements I realized the MQ-1 would be JUST wide enough to cover them. I rushed home in a mad frenzy and tore my MQ-1 apart and there it was... the upper keyslot detail piece!!!!

The MQ-1 electronics board is divided into two halves. Half is dedicated to the keypad and the other half to the display. The two halves were seperated and the leftover display half was used for the keyslot detail. As you can see in the pics below, that piece is not long enough to cover all the keyslots. It appears a plain piece of plastic was used to cover the remaining slots. You can even see a defined break between the top and bottom in a few of the inside helmet shots we took at MoM. It is even possible that the entire MQ-1 board was used on the RotJ helmet but I am not sure... Just not enough good pics...

I still haven't figured out what the two greeblies at the bottom of the Jedi and Prepro helmets are but at least we have most of it covered.

Thanks for looking!

ESB Helmet at AoSW compared to MQ-1


ROTJ Helmet at MoM compared to MQ-1


Inside view of ROTJ Helmet at MoM


Another inside view of ROTJ Helmet at MoM

[Bobo]

Hahaha. that's awesome man! I never noticed that there's anything inside those keyslots even!
Great find man, you da man!!!

I wonder if the IC was initially supposed to be visible through the slots, and then they just painted it over?!? I wouldn't see a point for the IC to be there painted over since very hard to see?

Cheers,
Bartek

[Rogue Studios]

Man what a week for the TDH! Great find Art I thought it would never be found.

Lee

[MaxPlague]

YES! Way to go bro! Check another one off the list! I owe you a drink, no, two drinks...wait, I'll buy ya dinner and two drinks!

[Art Andrews]

Bobo wrote:

I wonder if the IC was initially supposed to be visible through the slots, and then they just painted it over?!? I wouldn't see a point for the IC to be there painted over since very hard to see?

Just shows the amazing level of commitment and detail these guys have. You'll never see anything like that in a CGI POS. The little details like this are what make Fett stand apart from all other costumes and are what make me love Fett so much!

[Rogue Studios]

Hey does anyone know who paid that freakishly high price for the one on EBAY the other day? They also bought a divers buckle.


Lee

[Art Andrews]

That dude has more money than he knows what to do with as that was the SECOND MQ-1 he picked up in a week!

#1 at $102 - a good deal!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

#2 at $322....
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

More power to him!

[natty15d]

WOW

What a week for finds.

Now comes the hard part for me, finiding one of these, & justifing the cash to buy it

Superb discovery Art

Nathan

[secol_FETT]

great congrats

[METALLBOY]

WOW BRACKS ,nice ...

[Baddblood]

I knew it!
I'd suspeced it all along.

[Loranar_Fett]

Great find man - but I still can't pull my self to pay that much money for the satisfaction of having the proper found part. I would like to say I can - but I would rather have a bucket first

Loranar

[Art Andrews]

You can GENERALLY get an MQ-1 for between $100-$150. I really don't know what happened in that last auction, especially since the winner already had one. The most scary thing to me is that there had to be TWO people willing to pay over $300 for that auction to reach that high! I am not criticizing either perosn as I have paid some ridiculous amounts simply because I HAD TO HAVE some particular piece. This is just the first time I have seen an MQ-1 go over $200. Interestingly, only the winner is a Star Wars guy. I have no idea why the seocnd highest bidder bid so much as he doesn't seem to be a vintage calc guy or a Star Wars guy... Who knows...

[BobaFettish]

Notice anything else in that little metal box that could be a found part?

[Jango's kid]

Awesome find Detective Braks!!! Thats pretty friggin cool man!!

[BobaFettish]

Who's going to be the first to offer these in resin?

[Loranar_Fett]

I was thinking about asking that...

[Art Andrews]

I'll be glad to loan mine out to be cast if I can get something cool in return.

[bobagoat]

i fear for your mental health braks!

you have one hell of an eye for detail!!

[Rogue Studios]

Uh I can mold and cast it if need be.

[Baddblood]

Oh please do...

Now all we need to do is ID those ugly red resistors on the Jedi helmet.

[Art Andrews]

Man, if you can ID those I'll be your BEST FRIEND forever!!!

[Star Wars Chick]

Very sweet find there Brak's! Great detective work

[Jango_Fett_Jr]

Wicked job Brak's!

[sithlord23]

you are on a roll BB! that is just amazing!

[DL44 Blaster]

Simply unbelieveable! (pats you on back) Awesome isn't the word.......who'd of thought this even could be found.You should work for the FBI bud.......or at least the writers for "CSI" or "Without a Trace" ......................

[Art Andrews]

Thanks guys. Just lucky and happen to have many resources at my disposal.

[fettcicle]

Right under your nose :p I bet that part would have sat in your special Fett drawer for who knows how long

[Art Andrews]

No kidding!!!! It did for over 2 years!

[Lynn TXP 0369]

Awesome find Art!!
Now dip that puppy into some RTV.... Pleeeeeeease...
I got some open holes to fill in my bucket.... :p

Good job!

Lynn

[fettcicle]

So now, what are those knobs? Tips off the top of a drawing compass?

[TK-1776]

Dude,

I had no idea there was anything in there. I just dremeled my key slots and put black cloth + black mesh in behind it. I thought that was what it was supposed to look like. Whoops! :o See, I'm learning new things all the time here at TDH.

John Barrows, Jr.
TK-1776

[Art Andrews]

I happen to have a little RTV left over from a project DCB and I did. I'll give it a shot and see what happens. If I can't do it (I really don't know jack about molding or casting) I'll outsource it. I'll make sure these do become available. No worries!

[Art Andrews]

I am sure this pic would really **** off the vintage calc collector crew but what are ya gonna do? Here is the guts of the MQ-1, freed from its case. Here is the thing... Take a look at the inside shots of the RotJ bucket in the pics above... I am beginning to believe more and more strongly that there is a WHOLE MQ-1 epoxied into that helmet.... ARGH!!!!!! That means you would have to have TWO MQ-1s to finish a Jedi suit!!! I don't believe the ESB is the same... What do you think?

I guess I need to try to make a mold of the entirity of the guts instead of just the upper half...

[Art Andrews]

OK, just noticed something else... The little display module actually comes off quite easily (another horrified gasp fromt he calc collectors) and once it is off, you can see two holes in the green base board... two holes which match up to what we can clearly (blurrily) see in the inside of the ESB helmet... Now, if I could just confirm/deny the whole MQ-1 guts were used. I am pretty convinced the whole thing was NOT used on the ESB helmet but I believe they were on the RotJ and Prepro and the little knobs were attached to two of the holes in the lower section...

ESB helmet at AoSW:

[BobaFettish]

Alright, who do we know in Japan that can get some super hi-res pics of the inside of the MoM helmet while it is still over there?

[fettcicle]

How can we get SHACK to make this up

[Boba Freekk]

Amazing! I dont know HOW you do it

[Stormy320]

Wow - this is a very cool discovery.

[Loranar_Fett]

Any word on resin copies of this baby

Loranar

[BOUNTY HAUNTER]

Yeah, me too...I'd love to have a clean resin copy of this puppy ready to install in my MSH2 when I get it back from Lee...

Is this in the cards?

[Art Andrews]

Working on it!

[PropReplicator]

Aren't there silicone parts/chips on these MQ-1 guts? And are you going to use Silicone RTV? And doesn't Silicone stick to silicone? Just a friendly warning.

[BOUNTY HAUNTER]

Eh, I knew Braks wouldn't let us down...you go Brakky...

[Loranar_Fett]

Awesome, not only does Braks have time to "Save the World" in the other thread, he has time to get copies made of these boards.

Great work Braks,

Loranar

[Got Maul]

art, you are more sick than you could ever possibly imagine.

[FettTheHunter]

Just wondering, what sort of size is the chip/microchip/thing ?

[Spidey2222]

Got Maul wrote:
art, you are more sick than you could ever possibly imagine.

...Its perfection at it best but some call it a sickness.

[Shinobi_Fett]

CLEAR! ZAP! resucitating old old thread... So the ESB helmet has the full board or no?, and its not reinforced with anything? The board is kind of brittle, only being held together in the middle with thin wires. What does anyone do for an ESB installation? Suggestions?

[Art Andrews]

My assessment is, no, the full board is not used, only the upper half. I believe the lower half is just a flat piece of plastic. From what we can see inside the helmet, there is nothing reinforcing the calculator. It appears to simply be expoied directly in to the back of the helmet.

[Boomer Fett]

Could the greeblies be bicycle valve-stem covers???

[terminal fettler]

Could the greeblies be bicycle valve-stem covers???

I've looked into this. Schrader, Presta and even Woods valve covers are all too large to be this part. The woods valve cover was close but these seem to taper from top to bottom...

[Boomer Fett]

Sounds like you did your research brother. Thanks

[never_ending_fett]

I think they look kinda like the thumb screws on a computer cable; like an old school printer cable or monitor cable?

[Fettered]

I know I'm new around here, but the two greeblies look an awful lot like electrolytic capacitors to me. Looks as though the top one even has a lead bent over. Is that possible?

[Fett 4 Real]

They have recently been Identified as dental files, by a whole lot of searching by evilhemmes...and slave1pilot http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f23/n...t=dental+files http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f20/f...t=dental+files

[Fettered]

Oh wow, that is wild! That was a good bit of diggin'!